Geothermal colours
Rotorua
A New Zealand city of hot springs, where minerals stain pools orange, green and yellow, and carving is painted red.
Why Rotorua is sulphur yellow
Rotorua lies in a volcanic zone in the centre of New Zealand's North Island. Steam rises from parks and gardens, and the air smells of sulphur. In the thermal areas nearby, hot water brings up minerals that colour the ground. At Wai-O-Tapu a large hot spring has a rim of bright orange deposits around green water, another pool is a startling yellow-green, and crusts of yellow sulphur and white silica lie around them. Rotorua is also a centre of Māori culture. The carved meeting houses of the Te Arawa people are traditionally coloured with kōkōwai, a red ochre mixed with oil, a colour of high standing. A national school of carving and weaving is based here.
#E3C93CChampagne Pool orange#D9703CAcid green#B5D94AKōkōwai red#9E3B2FSilica white#EDEAE2Values are fair approximations of what the eye sees there, not measurements.
Colours tied to Rotorua
Written by the Rang desk with AI assistance. Background: "Rotorua" on Wikipedia. If you know Rotorua and we have it wrong, tell us.
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The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Mathura In: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Pondicherry In: Karthik Easvur, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Kolkata In: Ketanmehta4u, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Mumbai In: iMahesh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Fontainhas In: iMahesh, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Wellington Nz: russellstreet, CC BY-SA 2.0, source