Whale (Motuhora) Island forms the summit of a largely submerged Pleistocene dacitic-andesitic complex volcano that lies 11 km offshore from Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. The island is 15 x 5 km wide and elongated in an east-west direction. The 354-m-high central dome complex is flanked by East Dome, which forms the eastern tip of the island and is the oldest of the domes, and Pa Hill lava dome, which forms the NW tip of the island. Acid hot springs, steaming ground, and fumaroles are located primarily between the central cone and East Dome. The central cone and east dome are both older than the roughly 42,000 before present (BP) Rotoehu Tephra, and Pa Hill dome is overlain by the 9000 years BP Rotoma Ash but may be considerably older. Whale Island was included in the Catalog of Active Volcanoes of the World (Nairn and Cole, 1975) based on its thermal activity.