Mount Tarawera eruption 1886

General websites

Here are some reliable websites with information on the eruption of Mt Tarawera and its impact on the surrounding areas, including the Pink of White Terraces.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara is an excellent starting point for all questions about Aotearoa New Zealand. If we scroll down to the bottom of the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

• Enter the keywords 'Tarawera' into the search box.

• Select Tarawera, Lake Tarawera district and The Tarawera eruption to read about the eruption, the legend of the phantom canoe, the impact on the Pink and White Terraces, and buried villages such as Te Wairoa.

• Select Images and & media to explore other aspects of Tarawera.

Tips: Search words, or keywords, are the most important words in our question. Usually it’s better to leave out small words like ‘the’, ‘a’ and ‘of’ and just choose the main ones, eg Tarawera. We can always change our keywords or add more if we need to.

NZ History

This is another website from the Ministry for Culture & Heritage that is great for information on people, places and events in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Enter the word 'Tarawera' into the search box and select to read Eruption of Mt Tarawera.

• Further down the page is a link to Sophia Hinerangi (Guide Sophia) (also known as Te Paea Tīaho) who was a famous guide for the Pink and White Terraces before the eruption happened.

Tips: We like sites like this because they’re reliable. You can tell because of their web address – they have either .govt or .ac, meaning they are from government or educational organisations. They’re also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.

Rotorua Museum

This museum is part of the Rotorua Lakes Council. It has a range of local taonga (treasures), artworks, sculptures and collections about Rotorua from the past and the present.

• Use the keywords 'Tarawera' and 'Pink and White Terraces' separately.

• Read Mount Tarawera which includes the history of the area before the eruption, a description of the eruption and its impact on iwi and villages nearby.

• Go to Pink & White Terraces to read a description of this famous land feature and early tourism here.

Tips: Websites that have .com or .co in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the company’s mission and values are.

New Zealand Geographic Online

New Zealand Geographic is part EPIC a collection of databases put together, especially for schools.

• Use the search words 'Tarawera' to find the article The night Tarawera awoke.

Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

GNS Science

This is a really good site for the study of New Zealand's landforms, ocean floor, geology, fossils, and information on seismic activity like earthquakes, volcanoes, geothermal landscape and tsunamis.

• Use the search words 'Tarawera' and select Okataina Volcanic Centre/ Mt Tarawera Volcano. Remember to look at the Volcano factsheet on the page.

• The link Rotomahana Project Background tells you about the impact of the eruption on Lake Rotomahana.

Tips: Some websites have .au, .nz, .uk or other codes in their url. This can tell you which country this website comes from eg .au is from Australia or .nz is from New Zealand. You can check the ‘About Us’ link on the website for more information.

Papers Past

Papers Past is a collection of early New Zealand newspapers that have been digitised. You can search for and read articles as they appeared in the newspaper at the time.

• Go to Newspapers and search using keywords such as 'Tarawera eruption 1886'.

• Filter your results by date, title or type of content to find the most relevant articles.

• Select the article Tarawera eruption forty-third anniversary.

• If you can't see the full article, look for the link to the page number to look at the full article in the newspaper.

Sound and video

The websites below are great video and audio sources for Aotearoa New Zealand history topics.

NZ On Screen

NZ On Screen is an online showcase of Aotearoa New Zealand's television, film, music videos and series.

• Search using the word 'Tarawera'.

• Choose Tarawera for a five-part documentary on the eruption, the legend, the destruction it caused, stories from survivors and the villages that were buried.

Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

Funded by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision is New Zealand’s audio-visual archive of film and television, radio and sound recordings, props, posters and more from over 120 years of New Zealand’s history.

• Use the search feature to enter 'Tarawera', then select Available Online and Apply Filters to allow you to access material that is available to view.

• Listen to eyewitness stories — The eruption of Mount Tarawera and Tarawera eruption June 10, 1886.

Tips: You may see a message about cookies on this website. Cookies are a kind of data collector that is used by some websites to collect information about their users.

Books

Check out these titles at your school library or local library:

• The ghosts of Tarawera by Sue Copsey.

• New Zealand's worst disasters: true stories that rocked the nation by Graham Hutchins & Russell Young.

• The pink and white terraces revisited: an account of ten years of research on Mount Tarawera Lake Tarawera and Lake Rotomahana: answers to how the pink and white terraces disappeared and the long lasting mysteries surrounding the volcanic eruption of 10th. June 1886 by Herby Fitzgerald.

• Eruption!: discovering New Zealand volcanoes by Maria Gill.

• Fire in the sky: the diary of James Collier, Tarawera, 1886 by Shirley Corlett.

SCIS no. 5414484