Pink and White Terraces

The Pink and White Terraces (Māori: Te Otukapuarangi, lit. 'the Fountain of the Clouded Sky' and Te Tarata, 'the Tattooed Rock'), were natural wonders of New Zealand. They were reportedly the largest silica sinter deposits on Earth. They disappeared in the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera and were generally thought to have been destroyed, until evidence emerged in the early twenty-first century of their possible survival.

The Pink and White Terraces were formed by upwelling geothermal springs containing a cocktail of silica-saturated, near-neutral pH chloride water. These two world-famous springs were part of a group of hot springs and geysers, chiefly along an easterly ridge named Pinnacle Ridge (or the Steaming Ranges by Mundy). The main tourist attractions included Ngahapu, Ruakiwi, Te Tekapo, Waikanapanapa, Whatapoho, Ngawana, Koingo and Whakaehu.

The Pink and the White Terrace springs were around 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) apart. The White Terraces were at the north-east end of Lake Rotomahana and faced west to north west at the entrance to the Kaiwaka Channel. Te Tarata descended to the lake edge around 25 metres (82 ft) below. The Pink Terraces lay four fifths of the way down the lake on the western shore, facing east to south-east. The pink appearance over the mid and upper basins (similar to the colour of a rainbow trout) was due to antimony and arsenic sulfides, although the Pink Terraces also contained gold in ore-grade concentrations.

The process of formation of the Pink and White Terraces was described by geology professor Marshall of Otago University: "The water is alkaline, and contains much silica in solution. As the water cools, its solvent power is diminished, and some of the silica is deposited. As the cooling is most rapid on the margin of the pool, deposition is also most rapid there, and a basin of white silica is gradually built up [so that] basins are formed wherever the water collected into small pools when it first flowed down the slope."

Geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter wrote after his visit in 1859 that "doubtless thousands of years were required" for their formation. A more recent calculation by independent researcher Rex Bunn has provided a White Terraces date of ~5,000 BCE.

The White Terraces were the larger formation, covering about 8 hectares (20 acres) and descending over about 50 layers with a drop in elevation of about 25 metres (82 ft), and over about 240 metres (790 ft). The most northerly White Terrace was fed by the Te Tarata spring at its top. The Pink Terraces descended about 22 metres (72 ft) over about 100 metres (330 ft). The Pink Terraces started at the top 75–100 metres (246–328 ft) wide and the bottom layers were about 27 metres (89 ft) wide. Tourists preferred to bathe in the upper Pink Terrace pools as due to their clarity and the range of temperature and depths. There was also what was described as a "Black terrace" which appeared on Hochstetter's maps as Te Ngawha Ate Tuhi or Te Tuhi's spring, and is now the location of a crater..

One of the first Europeans to visit Rotomahana was Ernst Dieffenbach. He briefly visited the lake and terraces while on a survey for the New Zealand Company in early June 1841. The description of his visit in his book Travels in New Zealand inspired an interest in the Pink and White Terraces by the outside world.

The terraces became New Zealand's most famous tourist attraction, sometimes referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. New Zealand was still relatively inaccessible to Europeans and passage took several months by ship. The journey from Auckland was typically by steamer to Tauranga, the bridle track to Ohinemutu on Lake Rotorua, by coach to Te Wairoa (the home of the missionary the Reverend Seymour Mills Spencer), by canoe across Lake Tarawera, and then on foot or by canoe up and/or down the Kaiwaka Channel; over the hill to the swampy shores of Lake Rotomahana and the terraces, access to which was controlled by Tūhourangi. Artist Charles Blomfield recounted that tourists would arrive at the White Terrace about 11 a.m., view the sights there, lunch on potatoes and kōura (freshwater crayfish) cooked at a boiling spring, cross over to the Pink Terraces, bathe there and then go back.