Mt. Taranaki

Mark and I did some shooting up on the maunga (mountain) today, up by the main visitor center.

Taranaki, up close and personal. Spectacular.

A very impressive stratovolcano, by any standard. Summit elevation 2,518 meters (8,261 ft.) Like all stratovolcanoes, made of alternating layers of ash (from explosive eruptions) and lava flows, solidified as andesite. Regular collapses of its over-steepened sides, produced mudflows which underlie all of the surrounding terrain.

Quite young: active from 135,000 years ago to the present; its most-recent eruption, 1755.

Part of a chain of three volcanoes, getting older to the northwest. Pouākai, active until 240,000 years ago, the Kaitake, active until 500,000 years ago. Farther north, and older still, three volcanic plugs (the throats of eroded volcanoes) in the harbor of New Plymouth: Paritutu and the two Sugar Loaf Islands, dating to 1.75 million years ago.

Paritutu and Sugar Loaf Islands in New Plymouth Harbor
Taranaki and moving NW the older volcanoes of Pouakai and Kaitake. Due N is New Plymouth harbor.

 

Taranaki’s name comes from tara (mountain peak) and naki, from ngaki (clear of vegetation).

Original ancestor of the local Maori iwi, Te Kāhui Maunga (the people of the mountain)

Mt. Taranaki (and 2 million other acres of land) were confiscated from the local Maori in 1865, as part of the Land Wars. Robbing them of their ancestors, their connection to the land, robbing them of their identity and destroying their traditions and any sense of community and continuity.

Mt. Taranaki (and the lands of former Egmont National Park—Mt. Taranaki was named Mt. Egmont by Captain Cook in 1770) were returned to control of the local Maori, Nga Iwi o Taranaki, on 31 March 2023, a month ago as of this writing!