EarthRef.org Reference Database (ERR) -- Stearns & Dalrymple 1978

The islands of Hawaii, especially Oahu and Lanai, contain an abundant record of Pleistocene eustatic stands of the sea preserved as reef-limestone, beach deposits, wave-cut benches and notches, and marine terraces (Stearns, 1935, 1966, 1974; Ruhe and others, 1965). Evidence for as many as 33 ancient emerged and submerged shorelines has been described (summarized by Stearns, 1978). One of the best developed of the emerged Hawaiian shorelines is the Kaena shoreline. Kaena time was a warm interval during which corals and coralline algae thrived. As a result, more reef deposits of Kaena age exist in Hawaii, mostly on Oahu, than the total of all previous stands of the sea. These deposits are especially well developed in Lualualei Valley and on the Ewa coral plain. The type locality for the Kaena reef (Stearns, 1935) is at Kaena Point, Oahu, where the reef deposits consist of the Kaena Limestone (Lum and Stearns, 1970; Stearns, 1974), overlain by calcareous beach sand and fossiliferous beach conglomerate. At Kaena Point the upper part of the beach conglomerate is covered with talus, but an outcrop in which the top of the beach conglomerate is exposed at 32 m above mean sea level occurs 1.13 km east of Kaena Point. The evidence from these two localities indicates that the Kaena sea stood about 30 m above present sea level (Stearns, 1935; Ruhe and others, 1965). Thirty-meter terraces are worldwide, and many, including the Kaena, are thought to have formed during the Yarmouth Interglaciation (Stearns. 1974). The stratigraphy on Oahu shows that the Kaena stand was followed by the Waipio -107 m low stand (Illinoian), the Waimanalo +7.6 m stand (Sangamon), and the Mamala -107 m low stand (Wisconsinan) of the sea (Stearns, 1974). On the southeast slope of Diamond Head, Oahu, a dike of nepheline basanite that cuts the Kaena Limestone offers an unusual opportunity to determine a younger limit for the age of the Kaena sea stand and, by correlation, the Yarmouth Interglaciation.