The verdant cone of Brown's Island/Motokorea was the result of a cluster of volcanic events in the Auckland field beginning some 34,000 years ago. The lack of trees due to centuries of cultivation (it was one of the earliest European settlements in the Auckland area, purchased by William Brown and Logan Campbell in 1840), highlights the signatures of volcanic activity—a large scoria cone with a deep crater, a tuff ring forming the cliffs in the northeast, and the upper portions of lava flows that run into the sea.
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