Lake Taupō, in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, is the caldera of the Taupō Volcano, a large rhyolitic supervolcano. This huge volcano has produced two of the world's most violent eruptions in geologically recent times. The volcano is in the Taupō Volcanic Zone, a region of rift volcanic activity that extends from Ruapehu in the south, through the Taupō and Rotorua districts, to Whakaari/White Island, in the Bay of Plenty. Taupō began erupting about 300,000 years ago. The main eruptions that still affect the surrounding landscape are the dacitic Mount Tauhara eruption 65,000 years ago...

The Oruanui eruption (also known at Kawakawa eruption or Kawakawa/Oruanui event) of New Zealand's Taupō Volcano was the world's most recent supereruption. == Eruption == With a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 8, it is one of the largest eruptions ever to occur in New Zealand. It occurred about 26,500 years ago in the Late Pleistocene and generated approximately 430 km3 (100 cu mi) of pyroclastic fall deposits, 320 km3 (77 cu mi) of pyroclastic density current (PDC) deposits (mostly ignimbrite) and 420 km3 (100 cu mi) of primary intracaldera material, equivalent to 530 km3 (130 cu mi) of ma...

The Hatepe eruption, named for the Hatepe Plinian pumice tephra layer, sometimes referred to as the Taupo eruption or Horomatangi Reef Unit Y eruption, is dated to 232 CE ± 10 and was Taupo Volcano's most recent major eruption. It is thought to be New Zealand's largest eruption within the last 20,000 years. The eruption ejected some 120 km3 (29 cu mi) of material, of which just over 30 km3 (7.2 cu mi) was ejected in a few minutes. This makes it one of the largest eruptions in the last 5,000 years, comparable to the Minoan eruption in the 2nd millennium BCE, the 946 eruption of Paektu Mountain,...