Pumice is well known as a porous rock light enough to float on water. Pumice and ash cover a large part of the central North Island, forming sandy, free-draining soils that easily erode if the surface vegetation and thin topsoil are removed. This profile, in the Taupō–upper Waikato basin, shows a typically black topsoil that has developed under native shrub and fernland vegetation, and a porous subsoil.
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Reference: Les Molloy, Soils in the New Zealand landscape: the living mantle. Lincoln: New Zealand Society of Soil Science, 1988, plate 2.3
by Quentin Christie
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