The Cretaceous system includes the Waipara series, a belt of chalky limestones with some phosphate beds at Clarendon in eastern Otago.
These Cretaceous limestones are interbedded with glauconitic greensands, as at Moeraki Point in eastern Otago.
In southern Otago the Oligocene beds are brown coals and lignites with oil shales, which, at Orepuki, contain 47% of oil and gas, with 8% of water.
In South Island the river-beds of Otago province have been successfully worked by means of dredges, and good returns secured.
There were in its early years six distinct settlements - Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, Canterbury and Otago - between which communication was for several years irregular and infrequent.