Category: New Zealand
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Waitangi Day
On the 6th of February 1840 representatives of the British Crown and some 500 Maori Chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi (after the place where it was done), which guaranteed the Maoris right to their land and gave them the rights of British subjects. This sounds nice and generous, but the main thing was of…
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Cheers!
This large steaming lake probably owes its name of Champagne Pool to the bubbles caused by the escape of carbon dioxide at the surface. The water is hot, about 75° C., and contains many minerals like gold, silver, mercury, sulphur, arsenic, thallium, and antimony. Their deposits on the sides of the lake, just under the…
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Devil’s Bath
Devil’s Home, Devil’s Ink Pots, ….. the mineral deposits at the surface of the collapsed craters and in the hot water of the crater lakes often seem to evoke images associated with the devil. So here we have what is popularly called the Devil’s Bath. Has the little lake got its fluorescent green colour because…
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Splashy colours
The overflow of the Frying Pan Lake (see last week’s post) forms a hot water creek that finds several small hot springs in its path. The water contains a variety of minerals like antimony, molybdenum, arsenic and tungsten. These minerals leave deposits, thus creating – together with the bright green algae – pictures of almost…
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Fuming craters, mountains, lakes
Although the Earth most probably isn’t the only planet in the universe on which life has been able to develop – life of which we humans form a part – , it is and remains a miraculous little globe. When we then observe on this same Earth volcanic phenomena from close by, and realize that…
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Smoke clouds
For many thousands of years volcanoes have on and off erupted in the Taupo Volcanic Zone on New Zealand’s North Island. The eruption that created the Taupo crater lake in its present form happened some 26,500 years ago and is said to have been the largest volcanic eruption on earth in the last 70,000 years. Seeing…
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Steam clouds
Steam clouds blowing about in the wind, briefly hiding the trees from view, then hastening further, fading away. With this image I like to start a series of photos which I have in store for you the coming weeks about the marvellous phenomena of volcanic activity in the center of New Zealand’s North Island. The…
καιρός remembered 