We've been reading a lot lately about the rediscovered remnants of the Pink and White Terraces (also known as Te Tarata and Otukapurangi) near Mt. Tarawera in New Zealand, but I realized that many of you probably haven't heard much about the eruption that buried these lost wonders. The 1886 eruption of Tarawera was one of the most interesting eruptions in the last few hundred years ~ and even a VEI 5, so nothing to sneeze at as well. So, today I thought I'd give you the details on the great 1886 eruption that buried and/or destroyed the Terraces, along with a little background on the area near Tarawera.
Tarawera and Okataina volcanism
Now, Tarawera is very near-and-dear to me as it is one of my field areas of research. In fact, I'm currently in the last throws of a couple research papers on the previous eruption at Tarawera before the 1886 eruption - the Kaharoa rhyolite eruptions in ~1300 A.D. that produced most of the domes that make up the modern edifice known as Tarawera. The volcano itself is part of a larger caldera cluster, the Okataina Caldera Complex (OCC), that contains volcanic deposits - some larger than 150 km^3 - that date back as far as 300,000 years ago (see Smith et al., 2005) and are all part of the volcanism on the North Island of New Zealand. Many of you are likely familiar with another caldera cluster further south, the Taupo Volcanic Complex, that produced the ultraplinian eruption of 186 A.D., one of the largest eruptions in the last 10,000 years. The OCC, although not as flashy as Taupo, is still a significant volcanic area, erupting over 350 km^3 in the last 60,000 years. Tarawera is just the youngest of many rhyolite dome complex in the OCC, which has erupted dominantly rhyolite and basalt (more on that later).
