Craters of the Moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAhsBQCO3ZY

My cousin and his daughter came from Melbourne and they are staying with us here in Auckland for ten days.

Yesterday, Thursday 16th March, we visited several places in Taupo. Amongst the highlights was the stunning landscape of the Craters of the Moon located at the end of Karapiti Road, Wairakei Tourism Park.

The walk round the Craters took us forty-five minutes on flat grounds along marked tracks and boardwalks provided and maintained by the Craters of the Moon Charitable Trust established in 1999 as a result of vehicles being broken into when parked at the Craters car park. A group of volunteers now provides year-round security for vehicles parked outside the Craters ground. The thermal activity at the Craters is now monitored regularly by scientists from the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Science.

The bubbling mud craters and the escaping steam from the many blowholes located almost everywhere of the twenty-five square kilometers area made me ponder over the question of how this phenomenon could have happened.

Wikipedia gives this explanation of the phenomenon:

“All the craters at The Craters of the Moon are the result of hydrothermal eruptions. The pressure of the steam beneath the surface exceeds the pressure exerted by the weight of the overlying ground. This results in an explosion. A mixture of hot water, steam, hot mud and pumice is ejected into the air. The materials may be blown up to 100 m, leaving behind holes or craters as deep as 20 m. Hydrothermal eruptions occur about once a year.”

Wikipedia also gives the following information in this context:

Fumaroles

The openings in the earth surface, where geothermal steam and gases are emitted, are called fumaroles. These vary in size from one centimeter to half a meter in diameter.

The most powerful fumarole observed at Craters of the Moon occurred December 1967. It had a heat output of 116 MW.

Mudpool

Currently, only one of the craters has a mud pool. Here the gases (mainly H₂S) react with water to form sulphuric acid. This reacts with the rocks, turning it to clay. When there is water present, this forms the gray colored mud pools “that bubble and burp as steam and gas escape through them”.

Vegetation

Much of the ground at Craters of the Moon is warm or hot. This, of course, affects the vegetation. Only a few species of plants can survive in such conditions. One is the Prostrate Kanuka (Kunzea ericoides var. microflora). Other species include ferns and mosses that usually grow only in the tropics or warmer frost-free climates.

 

https://youtu.be/tWXKdnE6lAE

 

 

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