NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

What will the next Taranaki eruption look like?

Jamie Morton
By Jamie Morton
Multimedia Journalist·NZ Herald·
2 Nov, 2019 11:51 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

More than 85,000 people live within 30km of Mt Taranaki - 40,000 of who are in high-priority evacuation areas. Photo / Alan Gibson

More than 85,000 people live within 30km of Mt Taranaki - 40,000 of who are in high-priority evacuation areas. Photo / Alan Gibson

Mt Taranaki's next blow may be a moderate-sized event like recent bangs - or something else entirely if its "unusually long" slumber gives way to a new eruptive era.

It might be surprising that it's Taranaki - not Ruapehu, Tongariro or rowdy White Island - that is the most likely volcano to cause national-scale impacts in our lifetime.

Scientists currently put the chance of an eruption from the 2500m stratovolcano at about 25 per cent within the next 30 years, and 50 per cent within the next century.

In a new study, University of Auckland scientists took a deep look at its last 1000 years of activity to search for any patterns that might play out again.

We know from the past 30,000 years of Taranaki eruptions that these mostly occur in clusters, with very few isolated events present in the geological record.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Over such long stretches, stratovolcanoes like Taranaki could burst to life in a range of dramatic ways.

READ MORE: Why a big Mt Taranaki eruption just got more dangerous

"For example, over thousands of years, they are often capable of a range of eruption types and hazards, with eruptions that build lava domes, have large or small eruptions, produce pyroclastic flows or lava flows or lahars," study leader Dr Geoff Lerner explained.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"But over shorter times like a hundred or 1000 years, a volcano might only produce some of these hazards."

The most recent eruption period, called the Maero Eruptive Period, lasted between 1000 and 1790 and featured a dozen large eruptions that built up the present northwestern flanks of the volcano we know today.

By recreating the era using a range of lab and field based methods, Lerner and his colleagues revealed 11 separate active spells.

The first eruption, in 960AD, came from Taranaki's summit - unlike the previous bang a century early, which began from Fantham's Peak.

After that, Taranaki tended to erupt in several main ways.

There were "sub-Plinian" events that threw up medium-sized ash clouds, and single and repeated lava dome collapses, as happened in the most recent blow in 1790.

There were also blast eruptions, like one in 1350 that explains the partly open shape of Taranaki's summit crater rim.

READ MORE: What would happen if Mt Taranaki erupted tomorrow?

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

As a result of that event, Lerner said, pyroclastic flows had been pointed in a northwest direction, indicating that the shape of the summit had a big influence on these hot surges of gas and rock.

Mt Taranaki is considered the most likely New Zealand volcano to cause national-scale impacts over our lifetimes. Photo / NZ Herald
Mt Taranaki is considered the most likely New Zealand volcano to cause national-scale impacts over our lifetimes. Photo / NZ Herald

But there were no signs of the large-scale "Plinian" eruptions that Taranaki had produced at other times over the past 30,000 years - and also very few lava flows.

"A statistical look at the sequence of the last 1000 years shows that the time between eruptive periods was typically 10 to 100 years," he said.

"Eruptions were sometimes single events, but other times continuing periods of multiple eruptions that could have lasted over months or years."

The current period of rest - now stretching to about 230 years - happened to be the longest gap so far.

"If we are still in the Maero Eruptive Period, then we would expect the next activity to be similar to what we have seen recently, with more small to medium eruptions," he said.

"However, because the time since the last eruption is unusually long, it is possible we might be into a new volcanic regime containing new types of activity."

Whatever happened, he expected that most pyroclastic flow activity would again be directed to the northwest - unless the eruption was big enough to transform the summit.

Ash from eruptions might also affect areas to the east and north of the volcano, he added.

The findings, published in the Bulletin of Volcanology, come as scientists have just begun an $13.7m, five-year research programme investigating what would happen if Taranaki woke to become a regularly-erupting volcano.

A recent estimate of the net losses in economic activity from a brief Taranaki eruption was crudely estimated at between $1.7b and $4b – or between $13 billion and $26b over a decade of volcanism.

More than 85,000 people live within 30km of the mountain - 40,000 of whom are in high-priority evacuation areas.

Save

    Share this article

    Reminder, this is a Premium article and requires a subscription to read.

Latest from New Zealand

New Zealand

Armed police block Rotorua street

02 Jul 08:17 PM
live
New Zealand

Fibre outage top of South Island, Tasman residents evacuating, Auck Harbour Bridge hit by high winds

02 Jul 08:07 PM
Herald NOW

Sean 'Diddy' Combs acquitted of sex trafficking, convicted on lesser charge

There’s more to Hawai‘i than beaches and buffets – here’s how to see it differently

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

Armed police block Rotorua street

Armed police block Rotorua street

02 Jul 08:17 PM

An unmarked police car is blocking the entrance to John Rd.

Fibre outage top of South Island, Tasman residents evacuating, Auck Harbour Bridge hit by high winds
live

Fibre outage top of South Island, Tasman residents evacuating, Auck Harbour Bridge hit by high winds

02 Jul 08:07 PM
Sean 'Diddy' Combs acquitted of sex trafficking, convicted on lesser charge

Sean 'Diddy' Combs acquitted of sex trafficking, convicted on lesser charge

Local Government nominations open on Friday

Local Government nominations open on Friday

From early mornings to easy living
sponsored

From early mornings to easy living

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP