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There are no superlatives that can adequately describe New Zealand. It is a small country; unassuming and compact in size, and yet endowed with a unique range and diversity of landforms. It has become renowned worldwide for its superb natural beauty.
There are no other features that can lure and captivate more so than the vibrancy of a landscape associated with hot earth activity. The actions of volcanism brought this country into being; rising it from the depths of the ocean, and it is these continual actions that have nurtured it ever since. It is the heart that gives pulse. And it is these volcanic and geothermal regions which are New Zealand’s most dynamic feature.
Writer and photographer, Ian Hallmond, has brought together a collection of superb images in this new book, Hot Earth: New Zealand’s Volcanic and Geothermal Landscape. He gives account to the natural history of New Zealand’s volatile past. A country that sits precariously balanced on a thin layer of the earth’s mantle performing a continual balancing act; this has given rise to a long history of violent earthquakes, massive land upheavals, and devastating volcanoes.
The Pacific Ocean’s Ring of Fire is essentially an unbroken zone of volcanic activity that extends around the outer perimeter of the Pacific Plate. New Zealand is located along the south west margin of the Ring of Fire where it sits astride the colliding edges of the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plate.
Situated in the central region of New Zealand’s North Island is the Taupo Volcanic Zone; covering an area 50km wide by 200km long. The Volcanic Zone forms the south-western extreme of a chain of active volcanoes that make up the Pacific Oceans ring of fire. Lying at a shallow depth below the surface of the zone is an extremely hot magma chamber which has given rise to a spectacular display of volcanic and geothermal surface features.
At the northern end of the zone is the submarine volcano of Whakaari, (White Island), which is also New Zealand’s most active. This is a place that exhibits a surreal landscape of colour and features. The southern margin of the zone is recognizable by the three volcanic mountains of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu. The mid section of the zone, which takes in the city of Rotorua, is a wonderland of geological features associated with the hot earth it sits on.
With high-temperature geothermal fields producing surface features that are considered some of the rarest geological features on earth, A wide range of geothermal phenomena that includes hot and boiling springs and streams, geysers, silica sinter deposits, mud-pools, fumaroles, hot and steamy ground, altered ground and hydro-thermal eruption craters feature in this volcanic zone.
The 90 images represented in this book Hot Earth, by award winning nature photographer Ian Hallmond, captures the allure to this landscape; a landscape of surreal colour, texture, sound and energy.
