Rex Bunn 

The greatest geoscience and tourist attractions in the southern hemisphere were the Pink and White Terraces, the lost Eighth Wonder of the World. British, American and European tourists bypassed local calcareous terraces, for the sea voyage to New Zealand where the siliceous terraces astonished a global audience. Their allure remains. In 1886, the Mount Tarawera eruption buried the terraces. They were not officially surveyed, hence no one knew for certain, where they lay. Debate over their survival continued until the 1940s.
In 2011, a joint New Zealand-American project claimed to have found the Pink and White Terraces underwater. Recently their claims were refuted. In Europe, terrestrial survey documents were unearthed, including the only compass bearings to the terraces. Ferdinand Hochstetter’s survey records were repatriated and his 1859 survey reconstructed.
This spatial analysis reports the White Terraces could have been located after the 1886 eruption, by a competent examination of the Rotomahana Basin. By studying its topography, eruption crater, lakes and river systems; by georeferencing and from indigenous Māori knowledge; the early search and rescue, government and university survey teams; had sufficient topographic evidence for a Chain of Evidence, locating the White Terraces.
They also failed to consider water flows into and around the crater. Herein, I trace water flows from the terrace springs. These continued pumping during and after the eruption, creating watercourse evidence from the three terrace springs. These findings are compared with Hochstetter’s survey locations for the Pink, Black and White Terraces. The methodologies agree.
This validation, together with a new published altimetry and Black Terraces spatial research, provides layers of evidence for the coordinates of the three terrace springs today. This new body of empirical evidence, together with Hochstetter’s survey reconstruction; revises the historical record for the Rotomahana Basin eruption of 1886.