Taupō Volcanic Zone

Coordinates: 38°40′00″S 176°01′00″E / 38.66667°S 176.01667°E / -38.66667; 176.01667
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Taupō Volcanic Zone
Volcanic area
Volcano and historic lake/caldera locations in the Taupō Volcanic Zone. The distance between the town of Rotorua and the town of Taupō is 80 km. (White Island is not shown.)
Volcano and historic lake/caldera locations in the Taupō Volcanic Zone. The distance between the town of Rotorua and the town of Taupō is 80 km. (White Island is not shown.)
Taupō Volcanic Zone is located in New Zealand
Taupō Volcanic Zone
Taupō Volcanic Zone
Location of Taupō Volcanic Zone in New Zealand
Taupō Volcanic Zone is located in North Island
Taupō Volcanic Zone
Taupō Volcanic Zone
Taupō Volcanic Zone (North Island)
Coordinates: 38°40′00″S 176°01′00″E / 38.66667°S 176.01667°E / -38.66667; 176.01667
LocationNorth Island
AgeMiocene - Holocene
Formed byVolcanic action
Geologysee Taupō Rift
Highest elevation2,797 m (9,177 ft)
(Mount Ruapehu)

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 a larger Central Volcanic Region that extends to the Coromandel Peninsula and has been active for four million years. The zone is contained within the tectonic intra-arc continental Taupō Rift and this rift volcanic zone is widening unevenly east–west with the greatest rate of widening at the Bay of Plenty coast, the least at Mount Ruapehu and a rate of about 8 mm (0.31 in) per year at Taupō. The zone 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.

Activity

Mount Ngauruhoe

There are numerous volcanic vents and geothermal fields in the zone, with Mount Ruapehu, Mount Ngauruhoe and Whakaari / White Island erupting most frequently. Whakaari has been in continuous activity since 1826 if you count such as steaming fumaroles, but the same applies to say the Okataina volcanic centre.[1] The Taupō Volcanic Zone has produced in the last 350,000 years over 3,900 cubic kilometres (940 cu mi) material, more than anywhere else on Earth, from over 300 silicic eruptions, with 12 of these eruptions being caldera-forming.[2] Detailed stratigraphy in the zone is only available from the Ōkataina Rotoiti eruption but including this event, the zone has been more productive than any other rhyolite predominant volcanic area over the last 50,000 odd years at 12.8 km3 (3.1 cu mi) per thousand years.[3]: 230–232  Comparison of large events in the Taupō volcanic zone over the last 1.6 million years at 3.8 km3 (0.91 cu mi) per thousand years with Yellowstone Caldera's 2.1 million year productivity at 3.0 km3 (0.72 cu mi) per thousand years favours Taupo.[3]: 225  Both the Taupō Volcano and the Ōkataina Caldera have had multiple eruptions in the last 25,000 years. The zone's largest eruption since the arrival of Europeans was that of Mount Tarawera (within the Ōkataina Caldera) in 1886, which killed over 100 people. Early Māori would also have been affected by the much larger Kaharoa eruption from Tarawera around 1315 CE.[4][5]

The last major eruption from Lake Taupō, the

Hou Han Shu), but this has since been disproven.[6]

Whakaari / White Island

Whakaari / White Island had a major, edifice failure collapse of its volcano dated to 946 BCE ± 52 years. It has been suggested that this was the cause of the tsunami tens of metres tall that went up to 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) inland in the Bay of Plenty at about this time. Although significant tsunami's can be associated with volcanic eruptions, it is unknown if the cause was a relatively small eruption of Whakaari or another cause such as a large local earthquake[7]

Taupō erupted an estimated 1,170 km3 (280 cu mi) of DRE material in its

Volcanic Explosivity Index
.

The

Rotorua caldera has been dormant longer, with its main eruption occurring about 225,000 years ago, although lava dome extrusion has occurred within the last 25,000 years.[9][10]

Extent and geological context

Lady Knox Geyser, Waiotapu geothermal area

The Taupō volcanic zone is approximately 350 kilometres (217 mi) long by 50 kilometres (31 mi) wide. Mount Ruapehu marks its southwestern end, while Whakaari / White Island is considered its northeastern limit.[11]

It forms a southern portion of the active

Kermadec-Tonga Subduction Zone.[12][13] Mayor Island and Mount Taranaki are recently active back arc volcanoes on the New Zealand extension of this arc. Mayor Island / Tūhua is the northern-most shield volcano adjacent to the New Zealand coast, and is believed to have been active in the last 1000 years.[14] It is formed from rhyolite magma.[15] It has a quite complex eruptive history but only with one definite significant Plinian eruption.[14] Mount Taranaki is an andesite cone and the most recent of four Taranaki volcanoes about 140 km (87 mi) west of the Taupō Volcanic Zone.[16]

Associated with the Taupō volcanic zone, intra-arc extension is expressed as normal faulting within a zone known as the Taupō Rift.[17] Volcanic activity continues to the north-northeast, along the line of the Taupō Volcanic Zone, through several undersea volcanoes in the South Kermadec Ridge Seamounts, then shifts eastward to the parallel volcanic arc of the Kermadec Islands and Tonga. Although the back-arc basin continues to propagate to the south-west, with the South Wanganui Basin forming an initial back-arc basin, volcanic activity has not yet begun in this region.[18]

South of

Solander Island / Hautere
is an extinct volcano associated with this subduction zone, and the only one that protrudes above the sea.

Scientific study

Tectonics

Main article: Taupō Rift

In the North Island rifting associated with plate tectonics has defined a Central Volcanic Region, that has been active for four million years and this extends westward from the Taupō volcanic zone through the western Bay of Plenty to the eastern side of the Coromandel Peninsula.[19] The dominant rifting axis associated with the Central Volcanic Region has moved with time, from the back-arc associated Hauraki Rift to the intra-arc Taupō Rift. As there is presently no absolute consensus with regard to the cause of the Taupō Rift's extension or its exceptional current volcanic productivity, some of the discussion on this page has been simplified, rather than all possible models being presented.

Recent scientific work indicates that the Earth's crust below the Taupō Volcanic Zone may be as little as 16 kilometres thick. A film of

Hikurangi subduction zone. At Taupō the rift volcanic zone is widening east–west at the rate of about 8 mm (0.31 in)/year, while at Mount Ruapehu it is only 2–4 mm (0.079–0.157 in)/year and this increases at the north eastern end at the Bay of Plenty coast to 10–15 mm (0.39–0.59 in)/year.[22] The rift has had three active stages of faulting in the last 2 million years with the modern Taupō rift evolving in the last 25,000 years after the massive Oruanui eruption and now being within two essentially inactive rift systems. These are the surrounding limits of the young Taupō Rift between 25,000 and 350,000 years and old Taupō Rift system whose northern boundary is now located well to the north of the other two being created before 350,000 years ago.[22]

The Tauranga Volcanic Centre which was active between 2.95 to 1.9 million years ago, and was previously classified as part of the Central Volcanic Region,[19] appears now to be in a tectonic continuum with the Taupō Volcanic Zone. Recent ocean floor tephra studies off the east coast of the North Island have shown an abrupt compositional change in these, from about 4.5 million years ago, that has been suggested to distinguish Coromandel Volcanic Zone activity from that of the Taupō Volcanic Zone.[23] Further the distinctive Waiteariki ignimbrite that erupted 2.1 million years ago in a supereruption, presumably from the gravity anomaly defined Omanawa Caldera,[24] is within the postulated borders of the old Taupō Rift.[25]

Faults

The multiple intra-rift faults are some of the most active in the country and some have the potential to create over magnitude 7 events. The fault structures are perhaps most well characterised related to the Ruapehu and Tongariro grabens. The recent deposits from major eruptions and lake features mean many potentially significant faults are uncharacterised, either completely (for example the 6.5 MW 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake resulted in the mapping of the Edgecumbe fault for the first time) or frequency of events and their likely magnitude are not understood. It can not be assumed that just because the rate of expansion of the rift is greatest near the coast that this is where most significant tectonic earthquakes in terms of human risk will be. The Waihi Fault Zone south of Lake Taupō and associated with the Tongariro graben has a particular risk of inducing massive landslips which has caused significant loss of life and appears to be more active than many other faults in the zone.

Volcanism

In 1886, Mount Tarawera produced New Zealand's largest historic eruption since European colonisation

The north (

andesitic magma[26][27] and represented by the continuously active Whakaari / White Island andesite–dacite stratovolcano. Although Strombolian activity has occurred the explosive eruptions are typically phreatic or phreatomagmatic.[28] The active emergent summit tops the larger, 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) × 18 kilometres (11 mi), submarine volcano with a total volume of 78 km3 (19 cu mi).[29][30][31][32]

The central part of the zone is composed of eight caldera centres the oldest of which is the Mangakino caldera which was active more than a million years ago (1.62–0.91 Ma).[26] This produced ignimbrite that 170 km (110 mi) away in Auckland is up to 9 m (30 ft) thick.[33] Other than the now buried Kapenga caldera there are five caldera centres, Rotorua, Ohakuri, Reporoa, Ōkataina and Taupō. These have resulted from massive infrequent eruptions of gaseous very viscous rhyolite magma which is rich in silicon, potassium, and sodium and created the ignimbrite sheets of the North Island Volcanic Plateau. The detailed composition suggests subduction erosion might play a predominant role in producing this rhyolite,[34]: abstract  as later assimilation and fractional crystallization of primary basalt magma, is difficult to model to explain the composition and volumes erupted.[35] This central zone has had the largest number of very large silicic caldera-forming eruptions recently on earth as mentioned earlier.[36][3]

During a period of less than 100,000 years commencing with the massive Whakamaru eruption about 335,000 years ago of greater than 2,000 km3 (480 cu mi) dense-rock equivalent of material, just to the north of the present Lake Taupō, over 4,000 km3 (960 cu mi) total was erupted. These eruptions essentially defined the limits of the present central volcanic plateau, although its current central landscape is mainly a product of later smaller events over the last 200,000 years than the Whakamaru eruption. The other volcanic plateau defining eruptions were to the west, the 150 km3 (36 cu mi) Matahina eruption of about 280,000 years ago, the mainly tephra 50 km3 (12 cu mi) Chimp (Chimpanzee) eruption between 320 and 275 ka, the central 50 km3 (12 cu mi) Pokai eruption of about 275 ka, and the paired Mamaku to the north and east central Ohakuri eruptions of about 240,000 years ago that together produced more than 245 km3 (59 cu mi) dense-rock equivalent of material.[36] The southern Taupō Volcano Oruanui eruption about 25,600 years ago produced 530 km3 (130 cu mi) dense-rock equivalent of material and its recent Hatepe eruption of 232 CE ± 10 years had 120 km3 (29 cu mi) dense-rock equivalent.[6] Since the Whakamaru eruption the central part of the zone has dominated, so that when the whole zone is considered there has been about 3,000 km3 (720 cu mi) of rhyolite, 300 km3 (72 cu mi) of andesite, 20 km3 (4.8 cu mi) of dacite and 5 km3 (1.2 cu mi) of basalt erupted.[3]: 228, 231 

Less gaseous

dacitic dome [38] and so intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite but still more viscous than basalt which is rarely found in the zone.[39]

The southern part of the zone contain classic volcanic cone structure formed from andesite magma in effusive eruptions that cool to form dark grey lava if gas-poor or scoria if gas-rich of this part of the zone. Mount Ruapehu, the tallest mountain in the North Island, is a 150 km3 (36 cu mi) andesite cone surrounded by a 150 km3 (36 cu mi) ring-plain.[40] This ring plain is formed from numerous volcanic deposits created by slope failure, eruptions, or lahars. Northwest of Ruapehu is Hauhungatahi, the oldest recorded volcano in the south of the plateau,[40] with to the north the two prominent volcanic mountains in the Tongariro volcanic centre being Tongariro and Ngauruhoe which are part of a single composite stratovolcano.

Risks

Southwest side of Mount Tarawera, Mount Edgecumbe on the background.

The most likely risk is earthquake associated with multiple active faults,[41] such as within the Taupō Fault Belt, but many faults will be uncharacterised as was the case with the 1987 Edgecumbe earthquake.[42] Earthquakes can be associated with landslides and inland or coastal tsunami that can result in great loss of life and both have happened on the Waihi Fault Zone.[43] The relative low grade volcanic activity of the andesite volcanoes at each end of the zone has resulted in recorded history in both direct loss of life and disrupted transport and tourism. The only high grade eruption in recorded history was atypically basaltic from Mount Tarawera and although very destructive is not likely to be a perfect model for the more typical and often larger rhyolitic events associated with the Taupō Volcano and the Ōkataina Caldera.[44] As mentioned earlier the Ōkataina caldera complex is the highest risk volcanic field risk in New Zealand to man[37] and the recent frequency of rhyolitic events there is not reassuring, along with the timescale of likely warning of such an event.[44] These eruptions are associated with tephra production that results in deep ash fall over wide areas (e.g. the Whakatane eruption of ~ 5500 years ago had 5 mm (0.20 in) ashfall 900 km (560 mi) away on the Chatham Islands) `[45] pyroclastic flows and surges, which rarely have covered large areas of the North Island in ignimbrite sheets, earthquakes, lake tsunamis, prolonged lava dome growth and associated block and ash flows with post-eruption lahars and flooding.[44]

Mount Ruapehu1886 eruption of Mount TaraweraMount TaraweraTaupō VolcanoHatepe eruptionTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoŌkataina CalderaTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoŌkataina CalderaŌkataina CalderaTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoTaupō VolcanoMount TaraweraŌkataina CalderaMount TaraweraMount TaraweraŌkareka EmbaymentOruanui eruptionTaupō Volcano

Volcanoes, lakes and geothermal fields

See also: List of volcanoes in New Zealand § Taupō Volcanic Zone
Map all coordinates using OpenStreetMap

Download coordinates as:

Map
Map of selected volcanic features as rectangular symbols for the Taupō Volcanic Zone. Volcanoes classified as active are shown as red, other notable volcanoes (there are many more) are shown as orange, geothermal areas as light blue and if active hydrothermal eruptions as blue. It is possible by clicking on the map to get a full screen view that enables mouseover to show a label (often wiki-linked) for each symbol.
Map
Map of selected surface volcanic deposits centered on the Taupō Volcanic Zone, allowing wider volcanic context. Clicking on the map enlarges it, and enables panning and mouseover of volcanic deposits name/wikilink and ages before present. The key to the shading of the volcanics that are shown is rhyolite - violet, ignimbrite - lighter shades of violet, dacite - purple, basalt - brown, monogenetic basalts - dark brown, undifferentiated basalts of the Tangihua Complex in Northland Allochthon - light brown, arc basalts - deep orange brown, arc ring basalts -orange brown, andesite - red, basaltic andesite`- light red, and plutonic - gray. White shading has been used for postulated calderas (usually subsurface now).

The following Volcanic Centres belong to the modern Taupō Volcanic Zone in what proved to be an evolving classification scheme:

Satellite view of the Lake Rotorua Caldera. Mount Tarawera is in the lower right corner.
Recent major volcanic features Lake Taupō showing relationship to recent volcanic vents in red and present active geothermal systems in light blue.
Composite satellite image of Mount Ruapehu

Rotorua, Ōkataina, Maroa, Taupō, Tongariro and Mangakino.[46][47] The old zone almost certainly contains volcanoes in the Tauranga Volcanic Centre.[48]

Other important features of the TVZ include the Ngakuru and Ruapehu grabens.

Note

Craters of the Moon geothermal area

There is more recent, somewhat different classification, by some of the same authors, that uses the term caldera complex:[26]

Panorama across Lake Taupō

See also

References

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