A. With more than 1.5 million people, Auckland sits on a volcanic field made up of about 50 volcanic cones and craters that have erupted over the past 250,000 years. Auckland is on New Zealand’s North Island which is smaller than the South Island but far more volcanic. The country also has about 600 smaller islands including White Island

Q: White Island is New Zealand’s most active cone volcano, and it is called “te puia whakaari” or “the dramatic volcano” by indigenous people. Who are the indigenous people of New Zealand?

A. Ainu

B. Maori

C. Quechua

D. Sami

---

B. Somewhere between 1320 and 1350, the Maori became the first people to arrive and settle in New Zealand. The came by canoe from other Polynesian islands in the Pacific. The Ainu are indigenous people of Japan; the Quechua are indigenous people of Peru; and the Sami are indigenous people of northern Norway, Sweden and Finland.

---

Q: New Zealand has been the site of most supervolcano eruptions over the last million years, including the most recent. Where was the last eruption of a supervolcano in what is now the United States?

A. Alaska

B. Hawaii

C. Washington

D. Wyoming

---

D. The last supereruption of the Yellowstone hot spot was nearly 640,000 years ago in the northwest corner of Wyoming. New Zealand’s Taupo Volcanic Zone, which includes White Island and part of the North Island, has had four supereruptions over the last 1.01 million years.

---

Q: Other than Yellowstone and Taupo, there was just one other supereruption in the last million years. It was the largest and occurred on the on the island of Sumatra in which modern nation?

A. Indonesia

B. Japan

C. Papua New Guinea

D. Philippines

---

A. The eruption of the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia about 75,000 years ago caused a global volcanic winter lasting years and may have triggered a1,000-year cooling period. Some scientists have suggested the volcanic winter and cooling could have led to a sharp fall in the number of human beings creating “population bottleneck.”

---