Crater Hill is one of the volcanoes of the
Auckland volcanic field
The Auckland volcanic field is an area of monogenetic volcanoes covered by much of the metropolitan area of Auckland, New Zealand's largest city, located in the North Island. The approximately 53 volcanoes in the field have produced a diverse a ...
, in
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. It consists of an explosion crater about wide, partly filled with water. The hill, alongside
Māngere Lagoon,
Waitomokia
Waitomokia (also Moerangi, Gabriel Hill or Mount Gabriel) is a volcano in the Auckland volcanic field. Waitomokia's wide tuff crater contained three small scoria cones up to high, one with a crater, which were quarried in the 1950s.
Geology ...
,
Kohuora
Kohuora, located in the suburb of Papatoetoe, is one of the volcanoes in the Auckland volcanic field in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an explosion crater around 600 m wide, 30 m deep and with an irregular V-shape indicating it was formed ...
,
Pukaki Lagoon
Pukaki Lagoon, located in the suburb of Māngere, New Zealand, is one of the volcanoes in the Auckland volcanic field. The lagoon, alongside Māngere Lagoon, Waitomokia, Crater Hill, Kohuora and Robertson Hill, is one of the volcanic features col ...
and
Robertson Hill, is one of the volcanic features collectively referred to as Nga Tapuwae a Mataoho ("The Sacred Footprints of
Mataoho"), referring to the deity in
Tāmaki Māori
Tāmaki Māori are Māori ''iwi'' and ''hapū'' (tribes and sub-tribes) who have a strong connection to Tāmaki Makaurau (the Auckland Region), and whose rohe was traditionally within the region. Among Ngā Mana Whenua o Tāmaki Makaurau (the M ...
myths who was involved in their creation.
Late in the eruption sequence lava welled up inside the explosion crater creating a lava lake. This lake began cooling on the surface and around the edge, creating a solid basalt crust. When the molten lava withdrew back down the volcano's throat, the crust surface collapsed, creating the island in the middle of the present lake, and some of the solid basalt was left around the inside walls of the crater marking the former level of the lava lake. Two lava caves – Selfs and Underground Press Lava Caves – exist beneath the remnant crust on the south side of the crater. Quarrying has removed the small scoria cone in the crater and some of the tuff ring on the northeast side. The
Southwestern Motorway
State Highway 20 (SH 20), also known as the Southwestern Motorway, is a New Zealand state highway linking at Manukau with in Point Chevalier, via Māngere and Onehunga. Along with its spurs, State Highway 20A and 20B, the state high ...
was cut through the northeast crater rim and a small explosion crater.
References
*''City of Volcanoes: A geology of Auckland''. Searle, Ernest J.; revised by Mayhill, R.D.; Longman Paul, 1981. First published 1964. .
*''Volcanoes of Auckland: The Essential Guide''. Hayward, B.W., Murdoch, G., Maitland, G.; Auckland University Press, 2011.
*''Volcanoes of Auckland: A Field Guide''. Hayward, B.W.; Auckland University Press, 2019, 335 pp. .
Auckland volcanic field
Māngere-Ōtāhuhu Local Board Area
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