Volcanologists' Visit

Students in Rooms 4, 5 and 6 at Halcombe School were visited by scientists from Massey University this week. Jon and Natalya are volcanologists who travel all over the world studying active volcanoes. Is it a dangerous job? “Only if you encounter a pyroclastic flow”, explained Jon. This is a wave of boiling hot gasses and liquid that pours down a volcano burning everything in its path. Amazingly, red-hot rivers of lava are no problem - they move so slowly you can easily out-run them!

Students learned that New Zealand is home to 65 volcanoes. Many are active, such as Mt. Tongariro which erupted last year. This is because our country lies on the boundary of two of the planet’s tectonic plates – large chunks of the Earth’s crust which are constantly moving, pushing hot magma from deep inside the Earth up towards the surface. Lake Taupo is the water-filled crater of a ‘super-volcano’ which caused one of the biggest eruptions of all time around 1,800 years ago.

Jon and Natalya brought along a collection of incredible rocks which have exploded out of the craters of volcanoes. Children got to hold a ‘lava-bomb’, a rock around the size and shape of a lemon that flew over 3 kilometres when Mt Tarawera near Rotorua erupted in 1886. The visit was a part of the Halcombe School Year 4-8 students’ scientific inquiry into volcanoes and earthquakes.

Click to enlarge