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Mount Wellington, Auckland

Mount Wellington, Auckland

Overview
Mount Wellington is a peak and a suburb in Auckland City
Auckland City
Auckland City is the city and local authority covering the Auckland isthmus and most of the islands of the Hauraki Gulf, in the North Island of New Zealand. Auckland City is the most populous city in the country, with a population of It lies in the Auckland Region, and the Auckland Regional...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...



Mount Wellington is a 137 metre volcanic peak
Volcano
3. Conduit
4. Base
5. Sill
6. Dike
7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano
8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano
10. Throat
11. Parasitic cone
12. Lava flow
13. Vent
14. Crater
15...

 located in the Auckland volcanic field
Auckland Volcanic Field
The Auckland volcanic field is a generally monogenetic volcanic field in the North Island of New Zealand. Basaltic in nature, it underlies much of the metropolitan area of Auckland. The field's many vents have produced a diverse array of explosion craters, scoria cones, and lava flows...

 of Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with a population approaching 1.4 million residents, percent of the country's population. Demographic trends indicate that it will continue to grow faster than the rest...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...

. It is the youngest onshore volcano of the Auckland volcanic field, having been formed by an eruption around 9,000 years ago. It is the largest of Auckland's scoria cones. Because Auckland is a monogenetic volcanic field
Monogenetic volcanic field
A monogenetic volcanic field is a volcanic field of small, scattered volcanic vents. These volcanic fields, containing numerous monogenetic volcanoes, are noted for having only one short eruptive event at each volcano, as opposed to regular volcanoes that have several eruptions from the same vent...

 Mt Wellington is not expected to erupt again.

The suburb
Suburb
Suburbs are defined in various different ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city. Some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city...

 surrounding the peak is also called Mount Wellington, and is located 10 kilometres southeast of the city centre.
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Encyclopedia
Mount Wellington is a peak and a suburb in Auckland City
Auckland City
Auckland City is the city and local authority covering the Auckland isthmus and most of the islands of the Hauraki Gulf, in the North Island of New Zealand. Auckland City is the most populous city in the country, with a population of It lies in the Auckland Region, and the Auckland Regional...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...


The peak


Mount Wellington is a 137 metre volcanic peak
Volcano
3. Conduit
4. Base
5. Sill
6. Dike
7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano
8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano
10. Throat
11. Parasitic cone
12. Lava flow
13. Vent
14. Crater
15...

 located in the Auckland volcanic field
Auckland Volcanic Field
The Auckland volcanic field is a generally monogenetic volcanic field in the North Island of New Zealand. Basaltic in nature, it underlies much of the metropolitan area of Auckland. The field's many vents have produced a diverse array of explosion craters, scoria cones, and lava flows...

 of Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with a population approaching 1.4 million residents, percent of the country's population. Demographic trends indicate that it will continue to grow faster than the rest...

, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...

. It is the youngest onshore volcano of the Auckland volcanic field, having been formed by an eruption around 9,000 years ago. It is the largest of Auckland's scoria cones. Because Auckland is a monogenetic volcanic field
Monogenetic volcanic field
A monogenetic volcanic field is a volcanic field of small, scattered volcanic vents. These volcanic fields, containing numerous monogenetic volcanoes, are noted for having only one short eruptive event at each volcano, as opposed to regular volcanoes that have several eruptions from the same vent...

 Mt Wellington is not expected to erupt again.

The suburb


The suburb
Suburb
Suburbs are defined in various different ways around the world. They can be the residential areas of a large city, or separate residential communities within commuting distance of a city. Some suburbs have a degree of political autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city...

 surrounding the peak is also called Mount Wellington, and is located 10 kilometres southeast of the city centre. It is surrounded by the suburbs of Tamaki
Tamaki
-Geography:Locations named Tamaki include:*Japan**Tamaki, Mie *New Zealand**East Tamaki**Tamaki**Tamaki River**Tamaki Strait*Afghanistan**Tamaki-People:Tamaki is a Japanese and Māori surname, and a Japanese given name...

, Panmure
Panmure, New Zealand
Panmure is a south-eastern suburb of Auckland City, in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located 11 kilometres southeast of the city centre, close to the western banks of the Tamaki River and the northern shore of the Panmure Basin...

, Penrose
Penrose, New Zealand
Penrose is an industrial suburb in Auckland City, New Zealand. It is located to the southeast of the city centre, at a distance of about nine kilometres, between the suburbs of Oranga and Mount Wellington, and close to the Mangere Inlet, an arm of the Manukau Harbour...

, and Ellerslie
Ellerslie, New Zealand
Ellerslie is a suburb of the city of Auckland City, New Zealand. It is seven kilometres to the southeast of the city centre, close to State Highway 1...

, and by the Tamaki River
Tamaki River
The Tamaki River is, despite its name, mostly an estuarial arm and harbour of the Hauraki Gulf, within the city of Auckland in New Zealand. It extends south for 15 kilometres from its mouth between the Auckland suburb of Saint Heliers and the long thin peninsula of Bucklands Beach, which reaches...

. State secondary schools serving the area include St Peter's College
St Peter's College, Auckland
St Peter's College is a college for year 7 to 13 boys and offers a Catholic education to its students. It is a boys-only school in Auckland and is the largest Catholic school in New Zealand. Under an integration agreement with the Government of New Zealand, St Peter's College has a maximum roll of...

 and Selwyn College.

History of Mount Wellington


Named by colonists after the Duke of Wellington
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the nineteenth century....

, the native Māori
Māori
The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand . The group probably arrived in southwestern Polynesia in several waves at some time before 1300...

 people called it Maungarei and used it for centuries as a
Pa (Maori)
The word pā traditionally refers to a Māori village or settlement. In contemporary Western usage, it has come to refer to a Māori hillfort from the 17th - 19th centuries, that was fortified with palisades and earthworks such as defensive terraces. Prior to the 1960s, any Māori settlement,...

or hill fort
Hill fort
A hill fort is a type of fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze and Iron Ages...

.

Much of the old lava
Lava
Lava is molten rock expelled by a volcano during eruption. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at temperatures from 700 °C to 1,200 °C...

 flow surrounding the mountain is being quarried for industrial aggregates, and the large quarry to the north of the mountain produced 7% of New Zealand's roading aggregate. The quarry has now closed and is being redeveloped for housing. The volcanic scoria
Scoria
Scoria is a textural term for macrovesicular volcanic rock. It is commonly, but not exclusively, basaltic or andesitic in composition. Scoria is light as a result of numerous macroscopic ellipsoidal vesicles, but most scoria has a specific gravity greater than 1, and sinks in water. The...

 cone
Volcanic cone
Volcanic cones are among the simplest volcanic formations in the world. They are built by ejecta from a volcanic vent, piling up around the vent in the shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and size of the fragments ejected during...

 is of the greatest geological and archaeological interest however.

Education

  • Bailey Road School is a state, coeducational full primary (years 1-8) school with a roll of 418 and a decile rating
    Socio-Economic Decile
    Decile, Socio-Economic Decile or Socio-Economic Decile Band is a widely used measure in education in New Zealand used to target funding and support to more needy schools....

    of 3.
  • Stanhope Road School is a state, coeducational full primary (years 1-8) school with a roll of 495 and a decile rating of 4. It was established in 1958.
  • Sylvia Park School is a state, coeducational full primary (years 1-8) school with a roll of 248 and a decile rating of 2.

External links