The largest vent has rich and colorful layers built up from eruptions over the last 150,000 years. The colors here are displayed in a HDR composite image from bracketed shots.
Whakaari is New Zealand’s most active volcano and is only 50 km away from land in the Bay of Plenty. The island rises up 1,600 meters from the seafloor to expose a smoldering peak 2 km in diameter.