Photos

My previous shot was of the Champagne Poll. Adjoining it is the much larger Artist’s Palette. One can walk for hours in the fascinating Wai-O-Tapu park and marvel at nature’s power and beauty. The notes below, thanks to wikipedia indicate that this area of N.Z. had volcanic eruptions much larger than anything anywhere else, within recorded history.

As a Geothermal Area
Wai-O-Tapu is associated with volcanic activity dating back about 160,000 years and is located right on the edge of the largest volcanic caldera (depression) within the active Taupo Volcanic Zone. With the largest area of surface thermal activity of any hydrothermal system in the Zone, the Thermal Wonderland is the most active part of the 18 square km reserve and has at its northern boundary the volcanic dome of Maungakakaramea (Rainbow Mountain).

It is an area associated with the immense pressures attributable to the Indian – Australian Plate rising and overlapping the Pacific Plate causing a fault line which enables heat from below the earth’s crust to radiate upwards towards the surface and form geothermal features. In basic terms beneath the ground at Wai-O-Tapu is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. The water is so super heated that it absorbs the minerals out of the rocks through which it passes and conveys them to the surface as steam where they are ultimately absorbed into the ground. The wide range of colours are all natural and are due to different mineral elements.

Activity
There are numerous volcanic vents and geothermal fields in the zone, with Mount Ruapehu, Mount Ngauruhoe and White Island erupting most frequently. The zone's largest eruption since the arrival of humans was that of Mount Tarawera in 1886, which killed around 150 people. The Rotorua caldera has been dormant longer, producing its most recent giant eruption about 240,000 years ago. Taupo erupted an estimated 1,170 km³ of material 26,500 years ago, in the Earth's most recent eruption reaching the highest level on the Volcanic Explosivity Index.
The last major eruption from Lake Taupo was in 181 AD. It is believed to have first emptied the lake then followed that feat with a pyroclastic flow that covered about 20,000 square kilometres of land with volcanic ash. A total of 120 km³ of material is believed to have been ejected, and over 30 km³ of material is estimated to have been ejected in just a few minutes. The date of this activity is known since the ash expulsion was sufficiently large to turn the sky red over Rome and China (as documented in Hou Han Shu).