North Island
Taupō Volcanic Zone
This is a partial list of active, dormant, and extinct volcanoes in New Zealand.
| Name | Elevation | Location | Last eruption | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| meters | feet | Coordinates | ||
| Mount Somers | 1,688 | 5,538 | 43.70°S 171.40°E | 89 million years ago |
| Akaroa Volcano | - | - | 43°48′S172°57′E / 43.800°S 172.950°E | Miocene |
| Dunedin Volcano | 680 | 2218 | 45°49′S170°39′E / 45.817°S 170.650°E | c. 10 million years ago [6] |
| Mount Horrible (near Timaru) | - | - | 44°23′S171°3′E / 44.383°S 171.050°E | 2 million years ago [7] |
| Lyttelton Volcano | 919 | 3010 | 43°36′S172°43′E / 43.600°S 172.717°E | Miocene |
| Name | Elevation | Location | Last eruption | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| meters | feet | Coordinates | ||
| Antipodes Islands | 402 | 1319 | 49°41′S178°46′E / 49.68°S 178.77°E | Holocene |
| Auckland Island | 650 | 1981 | 50°41′S166°05′E / 50.69°S 166.08°E | Miocene [8] |
| Mount Dick (Adams Island) [9] | 705 | 2313 | 50°52′28″S166°4′55″E / 50.87444°S 166.08194°E | - |
| Pitt Island | 241 | 791 | 44°11′S176°08′W / 44.18°S 176.13°W | Ancient[ vague ] |
| Solander Islands | 330 | 1080 | 46°34′S166°53′E / 46.567°S 166.883°E | Pleistocene |
New Zealand also has de facto administration over Ross Dependency in Antarctica, which contains the following volcanoes:
| Name | Elevation | Location | Last eruption | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| meters | feet | Coordinates | ||
| Mount Bird (Ross Island) | 1765 | 5791 | 77°16′S166°45′E / 77.267°S 166.750°E | 3.8 million years ago [10] |
| Brown Peak (Sturge Island, Balleny Islands) | 1500 | 5000 | 67°24′S164°50′E / 67.400°S 164.833°E | 2001 |
| Buckle Island (Balleny Islands) | 1239 | 4065 | 66°48′S163°15′E / 66.800°S 163.250°E | 1899 |
| Mount Discovery (Scott Coast) | 2681 | 8796 | 78°22′S166°01′E / 78.367°S 166.017°E | 1.8 million years ago [11] |
| Mount Erebus (Ross Island) | 3794 | 12448 | 77°32′S167°17′E / 77.533°S 167.283°E | 2008 (continuing) |
| Mount Terror (Ross Island) | 3230 | 10597 | 77°31′S168°32′E / 77.517°S 168.533°E | ~ 800,000 years ago |
| Young Island (Balleny Islands) | 1340 | 4396 | 66°25′S162°27′E / 66.417°S 162.450°E | - |
The Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ) is a volcanic area in the North Island of New Zealand that has been active for at least the past two million years and is still highly active. Mount Ruapehu marks its south-western end and the zone runs north-eastward through the Taupō and Rotorua areas and offshore into the Bay of Plenty. It is part of the larger Central Volcanic Region that extends further westward through the western Bay of Plenty to the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula and has been active for four million years. At Taupō the rift volcanic zone is widening east–west at the rate of about 8 mm per year while at Mount Ruapehu it is only 2–4 mm per year but this increases at the north eastern end at the Bay of Plenty coast to 10–15 mm per year. It is named after Lake Taupō, the flooded caldera of the largest volcano in the zone, the Taupō Volcano and contains a large central volcanic plateau as well as other landforms associated with its containing tectonic intra-arc continental Taupō Rift.
The Auckland volcanic field is an area of monogenetic volcanoes covered by much of the metropolitan area of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, located in the North Island. The approximately 53 volcanoes in the field have produced a diverse array of maars, tuff rings, scoria cones, and lava flows. With the exception of Rangitoto, no volcano has erupted more than once, but the other eruptions lasted for various periods ranging from a few weeks to several years. Rangitoto erupted several times and recently twice; in an eruption that occurred about 600 years ago, followed by a second eruption approximately 50 years later. The field is fuelled entirely by basaltic magma, unlike the explosive subduction-driven volcanism in the central North Island, such as at Mount Ruapehu and Lake Taupō.
The volcanism of New Zealand has been responsible for many of the country's geographical features, especially in the North Island and the country's outlying islands.
The Auckland Region of New Zealand is built on a basement of greywacke rocks that form many of the islands in the Hauraki Gulf, the Hunua Ranges, and land south of Port Waikato. The Waitākere Ranges in the west are the remains of a large andesitic volcano, and Great Barrier Island was formed by the northern end of the Coromandel Volcanic Zone. The Auckland isthmus and North Shore are composed of Waitemata sandstone and mudstone, and portions of the Northland Allochthon extend as far south as Albany. Little Barrier Island was formed by a relatively isolated andesitic volcano, active around 1 to 3 million years ago.
The Erebus hotspot is a volcanic hotspot responsible for the high volcanic activity on Ross Island in the western Ross Sea of Antarctica. Its current eruptive zone, Mount Erebus, has erupted continuously since its discovery in 1841. Magmas of the Erebus hotspot are similar to those erupted from hotspots at the active East African Rift in eastern Africa. Mount Bird at the northernmost end of Ross Island and Mount Terror at its eastern end are large basaltic shield volcanoes that have been potassium-argon dated 3.8–4.8 and 0.8–1.8 million years old.
Te Pou Hawaiki is a volcano in the Auckland volcanic field in New Zealand. It was a small, low scoria cone south-east of Mount Eden that was quarried away in the early 20th century.
The Dunedin Volcano is an extensively eroded multi-vent shield volcano that was active between 16 and 10 million years ago. It originally extended from the modern city of Dunedin, New Zealand to Aramoana about 25 km away. Extensive erosion has occurred over the last 10 million years and Otago Harbour now fills the oldest parts of the volcano. The remnants of the volcano form the hills around Otago Harbour.
This is a list of the units into which the rock succession of New Zealand is formally divided. As new geological relationships have been discovered new names have been proposed and others are made obsolete. Not all these changes have been universally adopted. This table is based on the 2014 New Zealand Stratigraphic Lexicon (Litho2014). However, obsolete names that are still in use and names postdating the lexicon are included if it aids in understanding.
The Pouakai Range is an eroded and heavily vegetated stratovolcano in the North Island of New Zealand, located northwest of Mount Taranaki. It consists of the remains of a collapsed Pleistocene stratovolcano. The range is surrounded by a ring plain of lahar deposits from a massive collapse that has been dated as roughly 250,000 years old.
The Mangakino caldera complex is the westernmost and one of oldest extinct rhyolitic caldera volcanoes in the Taupō Volcanic Zone of New Zealand's North Island. It produced about a million years ago in the Kidnappers eruption of 1,200 km3 (287.9 cu mi), the most widespread ignimbrite deposits on Earth being over 45,000 km2 (17,000 sq mi) and was closely followed in time by the smaller 200 km3 (48.0 cu mi) Rocky Hill eruption. The Kidnappers eruption had a estimated VEI of 8 and has been assigned a total eruption volume of 2,760 km3 (662.2 cu mi).
The Waitākere volcano, also known as the Manukau volcano, was a Miocene era volcano that formed off the west coast of the modern Auckland Region of New Zealand's North Island. Erupting intermittently between 23 million and 15 million years ago, the volcano was at one point one of the tallest mountains in New Zealand. The volcano alternated between periods as a seamount and as a volcanic island, before tectonic forces raised the volcano up from the seafloor 17 million years ago. Volcanism at the site ceased 15 million years ago and the cone has mostly eroded, however the modern Waitākere Ranges are formed from the remnants of the volcano's eastern slopes. A number of visible volcanic sites associated with the Waitākere volcano remain around Auckland, including Pukematekeo, Karekare and Lion Rock.
The South Auckland volcanic field, also known as the Franklin Volcanic Field, is an area of extinct monogenetic volcanoes around Pukekohe, the Franklin area and north-western Waikato, south of the Auckland volcanic field. The field contains at least 82 volcanoes, which erupted between 550,000 and 1,600,000 years ago.
The Alexandra Volcanic Group is a chain of extinct calc-alkalic basaltic stratovolcanoes that were most active between 2.74 and 1.60 million years ago but is now known to have had more recent activity between 1.6 and 0.9 million years ago. They extend inland from Mount Karioi near Raglan with Mount Pirongia being the largest, with Pukehoua on the eastern slopes of Pirongia, Kakepuku, Te Kawa, and Tokanui completing the definitive lineament. The associated, but usually separated geologically basaltic monogenetic Okete volcanic field, lies mainly between Karioi and Pirongia but extends to the east and is quite scattered.
The Tauranga Volcanic Centre is a geologic region in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty. It extends from the southern end of Waihi Beach and from the old volcanoes of the Coromandel Peninsula that make up the northern part of the Kaimai Range, towards the Taupō Volcanic Zone.
The Coromandel Volcanic Zone (CVZ) is an extinct intraplate volcanic arc stretching from Great Barrier Island in the north, through the Coromandel Peninsula, to the Kaimai Range in the south. The area of transition between it and the newer and still active Taupō Volcanic Zone is now usually separated and is called the Tauranga Volcanic Centre. Its volcanic activity was associated with the formation and most active period of the Hauraki Rift.
Much of the volcanic activity in the northern portions of the North Island of New Zealand is recent in geological terms and has taken place over the last 30 million years. This is primarily due to the North Island's position on the boundary between the Indo-Australian and Pacific Plates, a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and particularly the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Indo-Australian Plate. The activity has included some of the world's largest eruptions in geologically recent times and has resulted in much of the surface formations of the North Island being volcanic as shown in the map.
The volcanic activity in the South Island of New Zealand terminated 5 million years ago as the more northern parts of the North Island became extremely volcanically active. The South Islands surface geology reflects the uplift of the Pacific Plate as it collides with the Indo-Australian Plate along the Alpine Fault over the last 12 million years and the termination of subduction, about 100 to 105 million years ago. There is a very small chance of reactivation of volcanism in the Dunedin Volcano. This chance is made slightly higher by the observation that Southland's Solander Islands / Hautere just off the coast of the South Island were active as recently as 50,000 years old, and on a larger scale 150,000 years old.
The Rotoiti Caldera is a postulated, mainly infilled sub caldera of the Ōkataina Caldera based upon gravitational and magnetic evidence. It erupted 100 cubic kilometres (24 cu mi) of magma that is used in the recent stratigraphy of much of the northern North Island. It was formed in the larger paired eruption with the lesser Earthquake Flat vents linked by tectonic interaction across the length of the Ōkataina Caldera. The series of eruptions was about 50,000 years ago, with the resulting widespread Rotoiti ignimbrite and several layers of Rotoiti/Rotoehu tephra/brecca/ash giving challenges in consistent dating. It was subsequently infilled by later eruptive activity to a depth of over 2 km (1.2 mi). The paired eruptions may have erupted about 240 cubic kilometres (58 cu mi) of tephra.