The Kawainui marsh in Hawaii and its adjacent broad barrier accretion plain has been deposited over a former coralline algal-coral reef embayment surrounded by high slope volcanic hills. In late Holocene time, littoral transport formed a beach accretion plain which cut off the former marine embayment leading to deposition of lagoonal and deltaic facies which were eventually covered by a dense salt marsh formed of Scirpus sp. and "California" grass. A core program was used to obtain data for a three dimensional analysis of the resultant transgressive coastal environmental lithosomes. By use of a large number of radiocarbon dates and three relatively important archeological sites surrounding the marsh, the late Holocene settings and times of deposition of the various sedime tary environmental units were determined. This transgressive sequence began at least 5,000 years before present and continues to build landward and upward. The vertical stratigraphic sequence from top to bottom includes salt marsh peats, lagoonal marine muds or terrigenous deltaic deposits, in some areas a basal marsh peat, and a coralline algal-coral reef tract, underlain by basalts. The adjacent barrier accretion sands overlie a coralline algal-coral reef tract underlain by basalts. Preservation potential of such a sequence in a volcanic terrain appears to be fairly high as deposits of many previous high sea stands have been identified in the Hawaiian Island chain. Final burial under deep marine muds or oozes will eventually occur as the islands subside as evidenced by the previous his ory of the Hawaii-Midway Island chain. Buried similar sequences of transgressive coastal sedimentary facies should be anticipated along other volcanic terrains such as the Kelvin chain (Mytilus sea-mount) off the eastern Atlantic coast of North America, the Jordan Knoll in the southeast Gulf of Mexico, the Tonga-Fiji volcanic arc, and other similar geologic settings.

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