Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive basaltic eruption in 1886.

Lava fields at the western end came from sources most likely buried in the Waiohau eruption, have a volume of at least 5 cubic kilometres (1.2 cu mi),[6] and would have taken several years to form.

The Rerewhakaaitu eruption has been recently re-dated forward to 17,496 ± 462 years ago,[4] at about the time of the last glacial termination, with a tephra volume of about 7.5 cubic kilometres (1.8 cu mi).

[5] The estimated total volume of the fifteen or more Waiohau Tephra eruptions and some lava is 2 cubic kilometres (0.48 cu mi).

[5] Shortly after midnight on the morning of 10 June 1886, a series of more than 30 increasingly strong earthquakes were felt in the Rotorua area[16] and by 2:45 am Mount Tarawera's three peaks had erupted, blasting three distinct columns of smoke and ash thousands of metres into the sky[17] At around 3.30 am, the largest phase of the eruption commenced; vents at Rotomahana produced a pyroclastic surge that destroyed several villages within a 6 kilometer radius, and the Pink and White Terraces appeared to be obliterated.

[18] Recent research using mathematical modelling of events during the later Rotomahana eruption phase, is consistent with eyewitness accounts; describing it resembling a pot boiling over.

[19][20] Settlements inhabited by Ngāti Rangitihi and Tūhourangi around the Ariki arm of Lake Tarawera, including Moura, Koutu, Kokotaia, Piripai, Pukekiore and Otuapane, Tapahoro, Te Wairoa, Totarariki, and Waingongoro, were buried or destroyed.

[25] This was due to the discovery of a previously unknown 1859 survey of Lake Rotomahana by Ferdinand von Hochstetter, which was deciphered and published between 2016 and 2019.

This unique primary data indicate the Pink, Black and White Terrace locations now lie along the present lake shores.

It is possible that the rise and fall of the lake level caused by pre-eruption fissures had freed a burial waka from its resting place.

Though skeptics maintained that it was a freak reflection seen on the mist, tribal elders at Te Wairoa claimed that it was a waka wairua (spirit canoe) and was a portent of doom.