Volcanism of New Zealand

The volcanism of New Zealand has been responsible for many of the country's geographical features, especially in the North Island and the country's outlying islands.

While the land's volcanism dates back to before the Zealandia microcontinent rifted away from Gondwana 60–130 million years ago, activity continues today with minor eruptions occurring every few years. This recent activity is primarily due to the country's position on the boundary between the Indo-Australian and Pacific Plates, a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and particularly the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the Indo-Australian Plate.

New Zealand's rocks record examples of almost every kind of volcanism observed on Earth, including some of the world's largest eruptions in geologically recent times.

None of the South Island's volcanoes are active.

Map of selected surface volcanic features in the northern North Island which includes features from volcanic activity in recorded historic times in New Zealand. Clicking on the map enlarges it, and enables panning and mouseover of volcano name/wikilink and ages before present. Key for the volcanics that are shown with panning is:   basalt (shades of brown/orange),   monogenetic basalts,

  undifferentiated basalts of the Tangihua Complex in Northland Allochthon,

  arc basalts,   arc ring basalts,

  dacite,

  andesite (shades of red),   basaltic andesite,

  rhyolite, (ignimbrite is lighter shades of violet),

and   plutonic. White shading is selected caldera features.