Ōkareka Embayment

Ash distribution (towards Auckland with first phase of eruption, towards west as is more usual with prevailing winds in second smaller phase) from the Rotorua eruption of the Ōkareka Embayment

Both the Ōkareka Embayment and the Tarawera Volcanic Complex are inside the old Ōkataina Caldera now often termed the Ōkataina Volcanic Centre. The newer Haroharo Caldera forms its eastern boundary[4] but is also part of the Ōkataina volcanic centre and some maps of the Horahora Caldera include the embayment. [5] It is now usually regarded as a subsidiary volcanic part of the Ōkataina Caldera which in the last 21,000 years has contributed a total magma eruptive volume greater than about 80 km³ (19 cu mi).[6][7]

The Northern Dome, just to the west of Lake Tikitapu formed 25,171 ± 964 years ago[8] in the Te Rere rhyolite eruption which also had other vents in the Ōkataina Volcanic Complex.[9] Such domes typically form over a vent that have an initial pyroclastic eruption and the vent(s) for this eruption lies under the Northern and Eastern domes. The Te Rere tephra deposits from the initial pyroclastic eruption had a volume of 5 km³ (1.2 cu mi)[9] and are widely distributed.[10] The DRE volume of all the Te Rere eruptions totals about 11.5 km³ (2.8 cu mi).[8] All the vents in the Ōkareka Embayment lie on the Haroharo linear vent zone's western end.

The Rotorua eruption of 15,700[2] to 15,800 years ago[11] was a two phase eruption commencing with a plinian eruption that deposited 2.6 cubic kilometres (0.62 cu mi) of material to the northwest from a vent now under the Trig 7693 dome and that lasted no more than 4 days.[2] Significant ash cover was towards the Rotorua area (hence the name) but ash fall was as far away as Auckland[2] with a total ash volume of 6 km³ (1.4 cu mi) including later minor ash deposits.[9] The largely degassed magma body then in a dominantly effusive rhyolite dome forming process built up Trig 7693 and Middle Dome to the south east of the Okareka Embayment over several years, but no more than 6, to a total volume of 0.62 cubic kilometres (0.15 cu mi).[2]

As far back as 1839 a German explorer Dr Ernst Dieffenbach described near Rotoroa the first recorded description of layered tephras from ash fall in New Zealand.[12] However correlation between eruption years and what has been coined as tephrostratigraphy is not straightforward where there is no historical written record. Radiocarbon dating was later used in the vicinity to date recent eruptions as deposition of each tephra was followed by a period of quiescence and soil formation. Such a series as published in 1990 (so the dates may have been modified by scientific discourse since) reads (with some translation from original jargon) :[12]

1. Rotomahana Mud 1886 CE (Tarawera)
2. Kaharoa 1314 CE (Tarawera)
3. Taupo 232 CE (Taupo)
4. Rotokawau 3600 years before 1950 (Rotokawau craters)
5. Whakatane 5500 years before 1950 (Haroharo)
6. Mamaku 8000 years before 1950 (Haroharo)
7. Rotoma 9500 years before 1950 (Haroharo)
8. Waiohau 14,000 years before 1950 (Tarawera)
9. Rotorua 15,600 years before 1950 (Okareka/Haroharo)
10. Rerewhakaaitu (pale layer within grayish loess deposits) 17,500 years before 1950 (Tarawera).

The impact on the Waikato region must have been marked as lake sediment from near Hamilton, New Zealand shows evidence of very active plant turnover just before almost 5cm of tephra is deposited from the Rotorua event. [12] The soils between the tephra layers in the Ōkareka Embayment have been analysed and are consistent with a cold dry climate between 25.2 ka to 14 ka and a more wet and warm climate since.[8]

Okareka Tephra was produced from vents in an eruption of Mount Tarawera 23,535 ± 300 years[8] before present so does not have an origin in the embayment.[13]