Geyser Gazing Society

Waimangu Geyser

The Waimangu Geyser was located in New Zealand. Its name translates as “black geyser” and came from the fact that the water that erupted from it was black from mud and rocks in the ground. This geyser started erupting in 1900 and quickly gained popularity because of its incredible size. The Waimangu Geyser was the largest one ever recorded reaching heights of 150 meters (486 ft) regularly. The geyser was even noted to reach 460 meters (1491 ft) on more than one occasion. The tallest geyser that is still considered active(although it has not erupted for several years)—the Steamboat geyser of Yellowstone National Park—only reaches heights of around 100 meters (324 ft).

The power of the Waimang Geyser was demonstrated in a terrible accident in 1903.Four tourists were killed by the geyser in 1903—Ruby and Katherine Nicholls who were sisters, David MacNaughton, and Joe Warbrick. They were members of a tourist expedition and ventured too close to the geyser. Their guide tried to get them to move away from the geyser warning them of the danger, but they stayed by it. A terrific eruption that shot out carried the four victims almost a mile away. The clothes of the victims were torn to shreds, and the bodies, badly damaged, were found in different spot around the landscape. One doctor believed that they died nearly instantaneously.

This incredible geyser quickly became a tourist spot and hotels were built around the area between 1902 and 1903. The tour was known as the “Round Trip,” and in fact, it still takes place today, although the geyser itself has died. Many photographs were taken of the geyser by tourists and scientists. Because of its dark color, the Waimangu Geyser almost looks like oil in these old black and white photographs. Unfortunately, those photographs are the only way that people can see the geyser today.

The Waimangu Geyser, as magnificent as it was, was short-lived. The eruptions began slowing in the fall of 1904 because of shifting geothermal activity and stopped altogether in late autumn of 1904. Since then, the Waimangu area has been a place of great interest to scientists. In the years following, more activity shifted the landscape and formed thermal lakes around the now extinct Waimangu Geyser. One of the boarding houses for tourists was destroyed during one of these periods of disturbance.

Throughout the century, scientists have continued to study the Waimangu area and instruments were installed in 1970 to monitor activity around the two hot lakes in the area—the Frying Pan and the Inferno Crater lakes. Scientists have discovered that the two lakes follow a cycle. The Inferno Crater Lake used to fall and rise along with the Waimangu Geyser. Now, it rises and falls inversely with the Frying Pan Lake. When the water level of the Inferno Crater Lake rises, the Frying Pan’s water level decreases and vice-versa. Waimangu is the only place in the world where hot lakes follow a cycle such as this. The Waimangu Geyser spurted into existence and gradually waned away, however taking into account the constant flow of geothermal activity that takes place in that part of the world, perhaps another such geyser will one day appear.