The Hamilton Basin is a roughly oval shaped depression 80 km north to south and 40 km wide centered about Hamilton City (Fig. 1). The basin is surrounded by ranges up to 300 m high developed mainly in Mesozoic basement strata. The physiographic basin is essentially a fault bounded basement depression of Late Tertiary and Pleistocene age. Throughout the Quaternary this basin has been a receptacle of terrestrial sedimentation; the materials have derived mainly from extrabasin sources and principally the Central Volcanic Region to the southeast. In addition, materials have been derived from erosion of the bounding ranges, and Coromandel Peninsula. The last major depositional episode involved flood deposit s of the Taupo Pumice. The present landscape has evolved through several episodes of deposition and incision.
During the excursion it is intended to show the participants exposures of the major Quaternary units of basin infilling, and some aspects of the landscape and the soil pattern, within the environs of Hamilton City.
The standard geological reference covering the geology of Hamilton Basin is New Zealand Geological Survey Bulletin 88 (Kear & Schofield, 1978) . The surface features and soil pattern of the basin are succinctly covered by McCraw (1967) and Bruce (1979)
