SCORIA IN TREES

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1935, Page 4

SCORIA IN TREES

EGMONT’S LAST ERUPTION. NORFOLK ROAD ILLUSTRATION. There was little doubt in his mind that the last eruption of Mount Egmont had occurred comparatively recently in point of time, said, a Stratford resident to a Daily News reporter yesterday. He backed his assertion by a reference to investigations he had made of trees near tlie reserve. .

Several large trees growing near the top of Norfolk Road when felled had been found to contain scoria deposits in forks 25 feet above the ground. There was not just an isolated instance of this, and the scoria was present not in fine particles but in larger lumps as well. The distance of the trees in question from the scoria slopes discounted any suggestion of the deposits having been blown there, and the size of some of the rock precluded its having been deposited by rain clouds. It had been advanced when he had told the story to another Stratford resident that the scoria had been in the ground when the tree grew and had been carried up, but trees did not fork, said the man, before they grew from the ground. The only plausible explanation to him was that the trees, tctara, kahikatea, and rimu had already been of a fair height when the last eruption occurred, and that the scoria had been deposited into the forks then.