Motuoapa is a rural settlement northeast of Tūrangi, on the southeast side of New Zealand's Lake Taupō.

The settlement is part of the larger Lake Taupo Bays statistical area.

[8] The highest point of Motuoapa Peninsula, at its north-eastern tip is a dacite volcano that has been dated as last erupting at 34,500 ± 3,100 years ago.

[9] The other volcanic formations, some of which the dacite cone is built upon, are older rhyolite with two different eruption ages of 81,300 and 77,200 years ago.

[9] A perhaps unexpected characteristic is the thickness of the pyroclastic deposits produced at Motuoapa, as these indicate that such rhyolite dome building which was assumed to be mostly effusive, can have explosive pyroclastic stages that would be very disruptive and dangerous.