Explore Central North Island Lake Taupo (616 sq km, 185m deep)
is itself a geological infant largely created in 186 AD when the
Taupo Volcano spewed out 24 cubic kilometres of rock, debris and
ash – at least ten times more than was produced by the eruptions
of Krakatoa and Mount St Helens combined – and covered much of
the North Island in a thick layer of pumice. Ash from the
eruption was carried around the world – the Chinese noted a
blackening of the sky and Romans recorded that the heavens
turned blood-red. As the underground magma chamber emptied, the
roof slumped, leaving a huge steep-sided crater, since filled by
Lake Taupo. It’s hard to reconcile this placid and beautiful
lake with such colossal violence, though the evidence is all
around: entire beaches are composed of feather-light pumice
which, when caught by the wind, floats off across the lake.
Volcanologists continue to study the Taupo Volcano (currently
considered dormant) and treat the lake as a kind of giant
spirit-level, in which any tilting