PG:6

Some of the latest lava flows have descended below the 1,500 m contour and include, with decreasing age, the West Ridge, Dray Track, Sharks Tooth, Skeets Ridge and Minarapa Stream lava flows. The two Beehives, Skinner Hill and The Dome (Ill. p.7) are cumulodomes which probably represent points where magma rose along vertical fractures arranged radially around the base of Egmont at this time (Neall 1971). Some of these fractures are clearly visible as linear stream channels in aerial photographs of Kaupokonui, Mangawhero and Mangawheroiti Streams. Over the last 500 years a multitude of events has occurred on Egmont which tend to obscure the earlier geology. About 1500 A.D. hot incandescent gas-charged clouds (called nuees ardentes) flowed down the Stony River Catchment from Egmont summit, similar to those which occurred at Pompeii although on a smaller scale. Much of the native bush on the north-western slopes was reduced to carbonised logs and fires