SUBMARINE THERMAL ACTION

Evening Star, Issue 19221, 12 April 1926, Page 8

SUBMARINE THERMAL ACTION

m BAY OF PLENTY EVIDENCE OF DiSTUDBAKCE The submarine disturbance m the Bay of .Plenty ami Us died, upon the lisning in liiafc area, as reported in a message Irum Taurauga, is the subject ol some interesting comment by Mr Frank Eyre, ol Auckland. Me writes to the ‘ New /calami Herald’; — “The recently reported submarine disturbance and the consentient disappearance ol lisii Irom tile A lute Island area is by no means an isolated instance of calamity that conics occasionally to lisn From tunc to time the sandy hcacho.s along that stretch ol coast as far up as Mercury Bay hear evidence of liio fact that angered Nature takes her toll, both by storm and tire. Against the former the countless sea dwellers have a reasonable chance, hut against tho latter there is a. single chance between Tight and death.

“Tbo most notable instance I can recall of nndersca, calamity occnvrcd during llie Tarawera eruption ol JSBi). Communication between tbo coastal townships of Mercury liny, Tairiia, Tauranga, and Opotiki at that time was maintained principally by moans n cullers trading between Auckland and the coast. The cutter Mana. ran into a vortex of mud-dyed sea, floating weed, and dead and dying fish on the occasion referred to, and, though but a youngster, f can recall the constellation at the strange sight, caused at the timfc. There can he no doubt that the direct menace to spa life came_from the sulphur and attendant, mines ratlmr than from any forceful upheaval, a, fact borne nut by the number of fish’ ‘ broaching ’ and ‘skating’ in the affected area. “ Hut, White Island is only one sign of the thermal activity that lies beneath (die hod of the Hay of Plenty and its environs. A few miles from Heronry Hay Hot Water Reach gives furt-lier evidence of old natural iorcos still unconquered. it is below highwater mark that one may delve when the tide is out, and so tap the heated waters that overlie the thermal bed, of which While Island is the most substantial sign. “At Mercury Bay there is also a

creek—a bathing place for whiles today, and, no doubt, for Natives in the past —where the heated thermal waters mingle with the colder How, which finds its source in 1 lie Moewai and Ohuka Mills. Titus we ran trace thermal action over a stretch of some eightv miles. A volcanic cone stands within Mercury Bay itself, and tor some distance inland 1 have traced a succession of pumice ridges, marking, no doubt, voleame age, ami also old high-water marks. We have evidence in this succession of punm-e ridges that the sea is slowly receding in this loca lit v.

“To those who know Iho locality, Ihorefore, it will not seem strange that chaos should reign from time to time beneath the surface of the waters, and that the fish should occasionally be sea tiered and driven from their haunts. That there has hern a. re potion of what took place in IRSI3 1 hero can he no doubt, though the dimensions of Iho disturbance have been less. The readv return of iho fish and the small evidence of moHalily on the beaches point lo a sudden outburst and a rapid sell ling down of the alfeeted region. Becm-rence of such happenings is inevitable, hut Nature has provided compensations in tins richly endowed sea area, where more nfien the greater lorms of sea life find sheller fro.to- the slrcss of storm.”