Geology in New Zealand

Mounds of fine golden sand that can rise nearly 500 feet tall.

This beach provides a glimpse of the ancient seafloor without getting wet.

An unusual snaking bank of boulders caused by longshore drift.

This quiet island in the middle of a bustling city is actually a volcano dotted with Māori ruins.

This unusual rock formation looks like an apple that has been neatly sliced in half.

Nature's slip and slide.

The platform atop this verdant volcano was built with the help of a royal elephant.

The explorer Captain Cook may have named it White Island, but the Maori call it Te Puia o Whakaari – The Dramatic Volcano.

These phallic stone spires once served as Tolkien's Paths of the Dead.

This electric green sulphur lake in New Zealand looks like a cartoonish radioactive dump site.

A Maori village obliterated by an 1886 volcanic eruption.

This strange geological landscape erupts with sudden bursts of water.

The once and future home of New Zealand's famed Pink and White Terraces.

Handcrafted thermal spa washes away each night with the tide.

The Dalai Lama named this New Zealand landscape the "Spiritual Center of the Universe."

Highly spherical boulders on the shores of New Zealand.