[8][2]: 528 [9][10] Modern-day Lake Taupō, 616 km2 (238 sq mi) in area and 186 m (610 ft) deep, partly fills the caldera generated during this eruption.

The Oruanui eruption shows many unusual features: its episodic nature, a wide range of magma–water interaction, and complex interplay of pyroclastic fall and flow deposits.

[1]: 8  Detailed compositional analysis has revealed the early phases of the eruption had a small amount of magma from outside the Taupō Volcano and are most consistent with a tectonic trigger.

[13] The timescale for the growth of the assumed Oruanui mush zone, which has a distinctive chemical and isotopic composition and zircon model-age spectra is now known to be from about 40,000 years ago from earlier Taupō Volcano eruptions.

[16]: 39 While pyroclastic density currents were generated throughout the eruption, the peak distance reached in ignimbrite deposits was about 90 km (56 mi) during phase 8.

[2]: 529  Ashfall affected most of New Zealand, with an ash layer as thick as 18 centimetres (7 in) deposited on the Chatham Islands, 850 km (530 mi) away.

Less than 22,500 years ago, Lake Taupō, having filled to about 75 m (246 ft) above its current level, and draining initially via a Waihora outlet to the northwest, cut through its Oruanui ignimbrite dam near the present Taupō outlet to the northeast at a rate which left no terraces around the lake.

[17] Diatoms from erupted lake sediments have been found in the volcanic ash deposits about 850 km (530 mi) downwind on the Chatham Islands.

[1]: 10  The other twenty-four rhyolitic events until the present, including the major Hatepe eruption, dated to around 232 CE came from three distinct magma sources.

[1]: 10  These have had geographically focussed vent locations, and a wide range of eruption volumes, with nine explosive events producing tephra deposits.