volcanoes

Volcanoes are exciting. They can erupt spectacularly, throwing molten rock into the air in pyrotechnic displays that are simply stunning....

Many students live within visual distance of a local volcano, and occasionally one of our volcanoes erupts in a display...

Magma Pop is a serious game that enables users to experience volcanic processes that are usually hidden from view. Go underground in an interactive magma chamber...

Magma Drillers Save Planet Earth is an activity that uses a team approach to finding environmentally friendly sources of geothermal energy. Ākonga take on the roles...

Explore the impact that the huge Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption in January 2022 has had on volcanologists theories on volcanoes. The article below has been republished...

In January 2022 the world was shocked to hear of a sudden huge volcanic eruption close to Tonga, causing a tsunami and volcanic ash to cover...

This article by Dr Nic Rawlence was originally published under the title Proposal to mine fossil-rich site in New Zealand sparks campaign to protect it. Dr...

Sulfur is a chemical element. Its official symbol is S and its atomic number is 16, which means that each sulfur atom has 16 protons in...

Just like a teenager wanting to be older, volcanoes can lie about their age or at least about their activities. For kids, it might be little...

Meet geologists James Goff and Scott Nichol as they investigate how ocean pebbles ended up on clifftops in Northland. What was it that caused the sudden...

Few things illustrate the dynamic and tentative nature of scientific investigations like the ongoing quest to locate the Pink and White Terraces at Lake Rotomahana. As...

As New Zealanders looking to the future, we are faced with many opportunities – and challenges. These include improving the health of all our people, advancing...

The Auckland Islands are often described as a hotspot of biodiversity, with a wide variety of seabirds, invertebrates and marine mammals and a range of hardy...

Discover our Planet Earth and Beyond resources for NZ Curriculum levels 1 and 2 and find out why New Zealand is home to so many earthquakes...

New Zealand has volcanoes stretching from the Bay of Islands down to Otago. Many of our volcanoes are extinct (no longer active), some are dormant (not...

The Earth is an enormous place. There is so much that we don’t yet know about what happens on the surface of the Earth, so how...

We live in a very exciting country. A day’s drive in a car can take us from snowy mountains, past geysers and hot mud pools to...

Isn’t it funny to think that the Earth is moving! If we stand perfectly still and look into the distance, the Earth appears to be perfectly...

An international team of scientists may have uncovered the biggest volcano on Earth, a colossal extinct structure lying under the north-western Pacific Ocean, at the boundary...

The scientists who found remnants of the famous Pink and White Terraces on the bottom of Lake Rotomahana on 2011 returned to the lake in March...

Scientists researching and mapping Auckland’s volcanic field thought they had discovered a hitherto unknown crater lying beneath the suburb of Grafton. However, it turned out early...

All waves behave in certain characteristic ways. They can undergo refraction, reflection, interference and diffraction. These basic properties define the behaviour of a wave – anything...

Dr Willem de Lange is a researcher and senior lecturer in the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Waikato. He studies many...

The Pink and White Terraces at Lake Rotomahana were once considered to be the 8th wonder of the natural world and attracted visitors from around the...

In February 2010, geologists from GNS Science and Macquarie University in Sydney spent 6 days on the inhospitable Solander Island, 40km south of the Fiordland coast....

Volcanoes often occur at the boundary where two tectonic plates meet. In New Zealand, the Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ), extending from Mt Ruapehu through Rotorua to...