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Rotorua’s geothermal fields, Ahi-tupua

New Zealand

Waiotapu's Champagne Pool (left), with orange sinter rim, and Artist's Palette sinter terrace (right) are among the most colourful geothermal features globally. Photo: Alastair Jamieson.

Waiotapu’s Champagne Pool (left), with orange sinter rim, and Artist’s Palette sinter terrace (right) are among the most colourful geothermal features globally. Photo: Alastair Jamieson.

Geological Period

Holocene

Main geological interest

Volcanology
Geomorphology and active geological processes

Location

Bay of Plenty, New Zealand
38°09’49”S, 176°15’15”E

Waiotapu’s Champagne Pool (left), with orange sinter rim, and Artist’s Palette sinter terrace (right) are among the most colourful geothermal features globally. Photo: Alastair Jamieson.

Outstanding colourful sinters, geysers, boiling mud pools and siliceous lily-pad stromatolites.

The several thousand discharge features in three Rotorua geothermal fields (Ahi-Tupua) are globally significant. Whakarewarewa has strong cultural values and has been used by the indigenous Maori for many centuries. It is best known for the five geysers and sinter stalactites at Te Puia sinter mound. Pohutu is the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphere, erupting hourly and reaching heights of 30 meters. Waiotapu is known for its colourful Champagne Pool and Artist’s Palette sinter terrace, its numerous collapse craters, sulfur-lined fumeroles, and its boiling mud pools and mud volcanoes. Waimangu is the world’s youngest geothermal field and has lily-pad stromatolites.

Pohutu Geyser is the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphere. It erupts hourly and is Rotorua city's most significant tourist attraction. Photo: Bruce Hayward.

Pohutu Geyser is the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphere. It erupts hourly and is Rotorua city’s most significant tourist attraction. Photo: Bruce Hayward.

  • Geological description

New Zealand’s Taupo Volcanic Zone (southern end of Tonga-Kermadec Volcanic Arc) is home to eight caldera complexes, with two active. By-products of this volcanism are numerous high-temperature geothermal systems along caldera margins. New Zealand pioneered the development of geothermal energy, which has impacted many surface geothermal features. Legally protected from this development are three fields close to Rotorua, containing the best examples of the wide diversity of surface discharge features (Hayward, 2022). These three fields are run by their indigeneous tribal owners as environmentally-sensitive tourist attractions, being the most popular sight-seeing destination in New Zealand for overseas visitors.
Best known of these three fields is Whakarewarewa with its outstanding geysers and boiling pools of clear, alkaline chloride or murky, acid sulfate waters. Waiotapu Field is best known for its brightly-coloured sinter deposits and colourful mixed fluids and fumeroles in numerous collapse craters. It also has New Zealand’s largest geothermal mud pool with numerous mud volcanoes. Waimangu Field is the world’s youngest geothermal field, created by the 1886 Tarawera eruption that destroyed the eighth wonder of the world – the Pink and White terraces (Hunt et al., 1994). Growing at Waimangu on the edge of Frying-Pan lake are siliceous lily-pad stromatolites.

  • Scientific research and tradition

These geothermal fields have been natural laboratories for diverse research, including investigation of deep exploitable areas, utilisation, preservation and restoration of surface features (Chambefort and Bignall, 2016; Scott et al., 2016), extensive study of thermophilic microbes (Power et al., 2023) especially as modern analogues for early life formation on Earth.

The Rotorua geothermal fields of Whakarewarewa, Waiotapu and Waimangu have the most significant discharge features of many similar fields in the Taupo Volcanic Zone.

The Rotorua geothermal fields of Whakarewarewa, Waiotapu and Waimangu have the most significant discharge features of many similar fields in the Taupo Volcanic Zone.

  • Reference

Chambefort, I. and Bignall, G. (eds) (2016) Taupo Volcanic Zone geothermal systems, New Zealand: Exploration, science and development. Elsevier (Geothermics, 59B).

Hayward, B.W. (2022) ‘Pohutu Geyser, Whakarewarewa, Rotorua: New Zealand’s largest and most regular geyser; and Waiotapu, Rotorua: Most colourful geothermal area in New Zealand’, in Mountains, Volcanoes, Coasts and Caves: Origins of Aotearoa New Zealand’s natural wonders. Auckland University Press, p. 384.

Hunt, T., Glover, R. and Wood, C. (1994) ‘Waimangu, Waiotapu, and Waikite geothermal systems, New Zealand: Background and history’, Geothermics, 23(5), pp. 379–400. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/0375-6505(94)90010-8.

Lloyd, E.F. (1959) ‘The hot springs and hydrothermal eruptions of Waiotapu’, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 2(1), pp. 141–176. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/00288306.1959.10431319.

Power, J.F. et al. (2023) ‘Temporal dynamics of geothermal microbial communities in Aotearoa-New Zealand’, Frontiers in Microbiology, 14. Available at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1094311.

Scott, B.J. et al. (2016) ‘The Rotorua Geothermal Field: An experiment in environmental management’, Geothermics, 59, pp. 294–310. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geothermics.2015.09.004.

  • Author(s)

Bruce W Hayward.
Geoscience Society of New Zealand.

Brad J. Scott.
GNZ Science, Wairakei, New Zealand.

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