The location of the Pink and White Terraces of Lake Rotomahana, New Zealand

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe locations of the lost Pink and White Terraces of Lake Rotomahana, New Zealand are plotted on today’s map by using sightlines in photographs of the terraces before they vanished in the volcanic eruption of 10 June 1886. Evidence is presented that the terraces could not have survived the eruption unmodified, in their original positions, at these locations. These photo sightlines and map plots add valid independent evidence to the debate about the fate of the terraces, and corroborate the finding of the 2011–2014 survey of Lake Rotomahana by GNS Science New Zealand scientists and their collaborators from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA, that the terraces did not survive the eruption intact. Evidence is presented that Dr Ferdinand von Hochstetter’s 1860s’ maps of Lake Rotomahana cannot be relied upon for accurate bearings and distances between ground features around the lake and terraces, and that, consequently, A. R. Bunn’s locations of the terraces derived from the maps are not reliable enough to support his conclusion that at least some of the terraces survived unmodified in their original position, and may be uncovered by excavation.