Exposed in the cliffs along the west coast beaches of Te Henga and O'Neills are the eroded remnants of an ancient crater, a pillow lava flow and lahar deposits – all of which were formed on the eastern submarine slopes of Aotearoa New Zealand's largest cone volcano.
Bruce Hayward explains how these contributed to the eruption history of the giant 20-million-year old Waitakere Volcano and what has happened to the volcano since it became extinct 15 million years ago.
