Waitonga Falls cuts deeply into andesitic lava and plunges 39 m into a bowl-shaped pool. The creek originates from the southwestern slopes of Mount Ruapehu volcano in Tongariro National Park in New Zealand.
During the last ice ages, the landscape of the Tongariro volcanic chain was strongly reshaped by the erosive forces of glaciers. They carved deep U-shaped valleys into the rock and ground down the lava flows. After the ice age cycles ended about 18,000 years ago, numerous streams cut deep V-shaped gorges into the volcanic rocks, once again altering the glacial erosion structures in the valleys. The sparse vegetation in the Tongariro landscape allows the geological structures left behind in the rock to be explored.
