This road cutting (about 5 metres high) in Ashpit Rd shows layers of tephras draping the landscape. They were ejected from Mt Tarawera (background) and the nearby Okataina caldera. The white upper layers are from the Kaharoa eruption, in about 1314 AD, and were probably ejected over a number of days. The dark yellowish-brown horizons are buried soils. The tephra at the base of the cutting is about 13,700 years old.
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University of Waikato
Photograph by Richard Smith
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