Mt Smart (Rarotonga), 1936 - 1957

This collection consists of photographs, mainly aerial, of volcanic features of the Auckland region. The photographs which date from the 1920s to the late 1950s have been used in a range of publications including, Auckland’s Volcanic Cones, 1957, by J.Golson, City of Volcanoes: a geology of Auckland, 1964, by E.J. Searle and most recently by Bruce Hayward, Graeme Murdoch and Gordon Maitland in Volcanoes of Auckland: the essential guide, 2011.

Originally part of the Geology Library’s collection the photographs were transferred to Special Collections by Elva Leaming, Geology Librarian, in 2010. Many of the images have been annotated by geologist Leslie Kermode during the 1990s. The labels attached by Kermode provide an accurate geographic location for each image in the form of a six figure grid reference for NZ MS 260; R11, Auckland, 1:50 000, and a compass bearing. These details enrich the collection and provide a reference point for comparing photographs of particular volcanic features at difference points in time.

The collection contains both oblique and vertical aerial photographs as well as a number of panoramas and views taken from the ground. The collection has been divided into three series: the first contains images of individual volcanoes the second runs of vertical aerial photographs of the Auckland area and the third scanned copies of the photographs prepared by Bruce Hayward in 2010 during the production of Volcanoes of Auckland.

The photographs in the first and largest series have been further divided into four sub-series corresponding to the arrangement used in Hayward's Volcanoes of Auckland.