The Fossil Forest

About 100,000 years ago the sea level was much lower and kauri, pohutukawa, and mixed broadleaf trees covered the coast. Around this time, the volcano that created Lake Pupuke erupted for the last time, covering the forest in lava.

The lava covered the trees, turned them into flaming torches. The trees that were not incinerated immediately rotted within the cooling lava, which eventually turned into a hard basalt shell. At low tide, the remnants of 500 tree stumps and branches can be seen on the reef. Perfectly formed hollow imprints of the trunks detailing bark and leaves are visible, some lying horizontal in the rock face and others standing upright. One of these, a 1.6-metre-diameter, 3-metre-deep kauri trunk, has been covered by metal grating for safety and is often mistaken for a well.

The oval holes dotted along the coastal basalt were caused by gas blisters in the lava as the outer layer of the lava cooled. These along with moulds of trees or large branches that were caught up and carried along by the flowing lava can be seen in the hardened lava flows between O’Neill and Brett Avenues. It is New Zealand’s only example of a fossil forest.

Continue walking along the pathway.