The Whakamaru eruption
New Zealand's largest known eruption blankets both islands in ash.
- When
- Known to
- ± 10 thousand years
- Era
- Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary
Around 340,000 years ago the Whakamaru caldera in the Taupo Volcanic Zone erupts an estimated 1,200 to 2,000 cubic kilometres of rhyolitic material, the largest known eruption from New Zealand and one of the largest of the Quaternary. Its ash is found across both islands and in deep-sea cores far offshore, where it serves as a dated marker horizon. The Taupo Volcanic Zone remains among the most productive rhyolitic systems on Earth.