Accessing Journals from Outside Academia

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Mt Taranaki: Hmmm

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It’s a rather large feature (see satellite imagery above. The dark green is the rough outline of the surrounding national park), having produced a classical almost-circular flank. It’s still active (last eruption, though minor, was around 1800), and it’s young, having commenced eruptive activity ~130 Ka. The really weird part is, it’s not geographically in-line with the rest of the TVZ volcanics, being ~100 Km west of the TVZ (even Maori legend makes note of this). And it’s not geochemically linked with the TVZ, being enriched in Potassium and other Large Ion Lithophile Elements. For a volcanic zone that’s popped up through an established continent, it’s also rather lacking in enriched, assimilated continental material, resulting in a fractionated elemental makeup (Here’s a thorough Journal of Petrology article detailing Taranaki and contrasting it with Ruapehu). But the big question that really gets to me, and one I haven’t found a satisfactory answer to is; why is Taranaki there at all?

You can check out other “geohmmms” at this month’s Accretionary Wedge.

Images in this article were taken from Google Maps and Wikipedia.

Mt Taranaki is ~100 Km away from the rest of the volcanics in the North Island of New Zealand. Mythologically it’s a social outcast but geologically it makes me go “hmmm”. My submission for the Accretionary Wedge #6.