Clay minerals, flux rates, and the size distribution of terrigenous matter in DSDP Sites 592, 593, and 594 have been used to reconstruct continental and marine paleoenvironments in the New Zealand sector of the southwest Pacific. Five stages are recognized from late Eocene to Pleistocene times.1. At the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, illite and mixed-layer clays marked a period of tectonic extension related to graben formation and volcanic activity.2. During the Oligocene, smectites formed abundantly in plains and perimarine lagoons which developed during subsidence-induced peneplanation of the relief.3. During the early Miocene, greater abundances of chlorite, illite, and irregular mixed-layer clays, and the appearance of kaolinite were due to an increase in the relief of New Zealand that followed the inception of a compressive regime; in the Tasman Sea, part of the detrital supply (smectites) was derived from the north and was deposited by southward-flowing currents.4. From middle Miocene to early late Miocene time, abundant chlorite, illite, mixed-layer clays, and kaolinite, and the appearance of stilpnomelane marked an important tectonic event in New Zealand which increased the detrital supply to the whole South Tasman Sea; on the Chatham Rise, abundant smectites from the north diluted the detrital supply influenced by the tectonic activity in New Zealand.5. From early late Miocene to Pleistocene time, abundant chlorite, illite, mixed-layer clays, kaolinite, and stilpnomelane were eroded from New Zealand, where the Kaikoura orogeny increased the relief, and deposited in the South Tasman Sea; during the late Pliocene, both grain size and amounts of clay particles eroded from New Zealand increased, related to reinforced bottom-current activity on the Lord Howe Rise; on the Chatham Rise, increased detrital components from the Southern Alps (chlorite, illite, mixed-layer clays, stilpnomelane) were supplied by northwardflowing currents.