Pink and White Terraces
destroyed land formation in New Zealand
The Pink and White Terraces (Māori: Te Otukapuarangi, lit. 'the Fountain of the Clouded Sky' and Te Tarata, 'the Tattooed Rock') were natural wonders of New Zealand. They were reportedly the largest silica sinter deposits on Earth. They disappeared in the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera and were generally thought to have been destroyed, until evidence emerged in the early twenty-first century of their possible survival.
The Pink and White Terraces were formed by upwelling geothermal springs containing a cocktail of silica-saturated, near-neutral pH chloride water. These two world-famous springs were part of a group of hot springs and geysers, chiefly along an easterly ridge named Pinnacle Ridge (or the Steaming Ranges by Mundy). The main tourist attractions included Ngahapu, Ruakiwi, Te Tekapo, Waikanapanapa, Whatapoho, Ngawana, Koingo and Whakaehu.
The Pink and the White Terrace springs were around 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) apart. The White Terraces were at the north-east end of Lake Rotomahana and faced west to north west at the entrance to the Kaiwaka Channel. Te Tarata descended to the lake edge around 25 metres (82 ft) below. The Pink Terraces lay four fifths of the way down the lake on the western shore, facing east to south-east.
The public source identifies “Pink and White Terraces” as destroyed land formation in New Zealand. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pink, White and Terraces.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1814018. Authority coordinates are -38.261, 176.431. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1886.
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This entry incorporates text from “Pink and White Terraces” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.