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Large explosive eruptions are generally rare, random events in the history of any particular volcano, volcanic area, or worldwide. In the Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand, temporal clustering of eruptions occurs on a 15 smaller eruptions over a total ~100 k.y. period. After a precursor eruption from a nearby source (and a break of years to decades), these paired eruptions in turn generated a wet ash-fall deposit and a dry pumice-fall deposit; the Mamaku ignimbrite (>145 [km.sup.3] magma); a fine-grained vitric ash-fall deposit; then the Ohakuri ignimbrite (>100 [km.sup.3] magma). Rotorua and Ohakuri, spaced ~30 km apart, are the inferred collapse calderas associated with the Mamaku and Ohakuri ignimbrites, respectively. The early wet and dry fall deposits came from southerly sources, close to or within the subsequent Ohakuri caldera, while the fine-grained vitric ash is inferred to represent a co-ignimbrite ash from the Mamaku ignimbrite. At its southwest margin, the Mamaku ignimbrite overlies, but is also intercalated within and then overlain by, the pumice fall deposit, demonstrating that at least two widely spaced vents were active simultaneously for part of the eruption sequence. The post-Mamaku vitric ash-fall deposit underwent only trivial reworkiug prior to emplacement of the Ohakuri ignimbrite. This and other field evidence imply continuity, or time gaps of only days to months, in the whole paired sequence. Syneruptive volcanotectonic faulting may have permitted accumulation of >400 m of nonwelded Ohakuri ignimbrite through graben subsidence. Posteruptive faulting within years to decades of the eruption produced an ~300 m extra-caldera offset of the Mamaku ignimbrite and collateral subsidence of a >40 [km.sup.2] area immediately south of Rotorua caldera. Temporal linkages between ignimbrite eruptions and graben subsidence, the NNE-SSW alignment of associated faulting between the Rotorua and Ohakuri calderas, and the eruption-related subsidence indicate a tectonic control on volcanism associated with Taupo Volcanic Zone rifting processes. Statistical forecasts of the frequency of large-volume explosive events based on averages may be inaccurate because of tectonic triggering effects. Keywords: caldera collapse, collateral subsidence, ignimbrite eruption, Taupo Volcanic Zone, Mamaku ignimbrite, Ohakuri ignimbrite.

Chimneys around hydrothermal vents at a depth of c. 140 m in the Horomatangi Reefs area in Lake Taupo, New Zealand, are composed of amorphous silica (opal-A) with lesser amounts of Mn-, Fe-, and Hg-rich precipitates. Detrital quartz and feldspar grains are found in the surrounding sediments. The associated biota includes fish, bacteria, sponges, crayfish, amphipods, copepods, ostracodes, annelids, and other unidentified organisms. Much of this biota, however, is not preserved in the opal-A deposits. Instead, the silicified biota includes filamentous microbes and diatoms, scattered coccoid microbes, fungal hyphae and spores, rare sponge spicules, and rare worm(?) tubes. The diatoms, coccoid microbes, and fungi were brought into the area with the detrital sediment. In ancient successions, distinction between sublacustrine, terrestrial, and some marine hot spring deposits may be difficult because the precipitates share many similarities. Distinction based on the biota is viable only if palaeoecological information can be inferred from accurately identified organisms. Unfortunately, silicification commonly disguises microbes and precludes their accurate identification. Diagenetic transformation of opal-A to its more stable polymorphs also destroys many original depositional fabrics and silicified microbes. Distinction between the different types of spring deposit may therefore depend on the interpretation of their overall sedimentological and stratigraphic setting.

This article presents the results of a Marxist empirical study of New Zealand's class structure from 1896 to 2001. Class structure estimations were calculated by classifying the working population using Census information relating to occupation and employment status: first into the initial Marxist class locations of proletariat, bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie; then into Erik Olin Wright's contradictory class locations of managers, supervisors and semiautonomous employees. The results of the empirical research demonstrate that at the national level clear trends are evident in the changing composition of the class structure from 1896 to 2001. The proletariat continues to constitute the majority of the working population, rather than being eroded by the emerging middle class. The lack of correlation between objective class structure and class-consciousness indicates that further research is required in this area. Overall, the results provide corroborative evidence for a Marxist interpretation, with particular respect to the overall configuration of the objective class structure.

In an era where the practices of globalisation are raising questions regarding the relevance and status of national borders, immigration policy is one area where states seek to re-assert such borders. Control over immigration is central component of state sovereignty; moreover, immigration policy is intimately connected to questions of national interests, values and identity. It is a site of contestation where a nation's interests (security and prosperity) and values (openness, tolerance and respect for international human rights laws) may come into conflict. In this process, questions may be raised as to how a nation's interests and values are formed and confirmed. This study takes the view that these elements derive from a more fundamental debate over the nation's identity. Thus it seeks to explore competing discourses of national identity that have emerged through contemporary debates over immigration policy.

Taranaki Gothic is arguably the most important narrative archetype in New Zealand cultural production and political economy. The basic Taranaki Gothic pattern--innocent, fast rising excitement, peaking early, seeing itself threatened, unravelling as wider realities tell, crashing and burning at the end--resonates widely through national experience and sensibility. It's discernable in crucial identity narrative experiences--Gallipoli, Flanders, Phar Lap, national development by import substitution, Think Big, the '87 sharemarket crash, the America's Cup--and in thematic obsessions of cultural production: innocence hypostatized or violated by trauma, slapstick adventure going wrong, apparently dissociated elements and protagonists coming together quick with explosive consequence. When cultural and political economic Taranaki Gothic moments run into each other, there's a standard repertoire of formal outcomes: the overwrought, the understated, the faux naive, quirky, frenzied, grotesque, and doctrinaire. This, the essay argues, is a predictable experience for a small, distanced political and cultural economy in the semi-periphery of modern capitalism. But while the basic Taranaki Gothic narrative has remained archetypal, it has been differently engaged, and perversely instantiated, in different phases of New Zealand political-economic-cultural production.

This paper considers the conditions of multiculturalism allowing Muslims living as minorities in Western society and its liberal democracies to assert their religious identity. The New Zealand situation is discussed in a brief comparative perspective with the relevant conditions in Western Europe and the USA. Beyond laissez-faire tolerance, specific legal instruments, which underpin this nation's multicultural stance, are available to New Zealand Muslims. The paper analyses to what extent Muslims have made use of them at the present point intime and how effective they are in safeguarding the religious needs of Muslims. These legal instruments also form a test ground of the strength of multicultural freedoms insofar as they can be used to explore, and perhaps extend, the limits of legally grounded multiculturalism. The dialogical conditions lend themselves to considerable future dynamics, which may affect Western Islam as much as the host society.

Food and sociality are enacted across a range of social settings and throughout a person's life. Food and its exchange shape and are shaped by social relations in the domestic sphere. Focusing on the New Zealand flat household this paper will examine how important the day to day organisation of 'flat food' is to the creation, maintenance or dissolution of social relationships through the various food tasks of shopping, cooking and meal sharing. Focusing on the social construction of food and its role in systems of reciprocity, a fundamental tension is identified between the assertion of 'individuality' and sociability within the flat environment.

New Zealand provides one of the earliest examples of foraging theory applications to archaeological situations (Anderson 1981). Since this landmark study, significant developments over the last twenty years have led to an increasing number of detailed analyses examining the effects of resource depression on human foraging. In particular, foraging theory analyses have become better at documenting resource depression and integrating butchery/transport studies into these analyses. Using the faunal data from the Shag River Mouth site, I illustrate how these methodological advances have resulted in a more comprehensive understanding of the processes of subsistence change in southern New Zealand. Keywords New Zealand; foraging theory; subsistence change; zooarchaeology; resource depression.

The New Zealand Socioeconomic Index (NZSEI) was developed to help the New Zealand research community measure the occupational socio-economic status (SES) in their medical and public health reports. The results of the index show expected socio-economic patterns and provide a standardized and internationally comparable occupational scale for males and females employed on either a full or part-time basis.

Research into pastry and croissants containing transglutaminase.

The author discusses the possibility of a northern New Zealand obsidian source in addition to the four known sources. Varying interpretations of a 1927 reference and the need for a verifying expedition are presented.

In their report 'Rapid extinction of the moas (Aves: Dinornithiformes): Model, test, and implications' (24 Mar., p. 2250), Holdaway and Jacomb contribute a useful zoological model for moa extinction, but [...]

The laxative and antioxidant properties of kiwi fruit are being investigated at the University of Auckland and the Auckland University of Technology. Beneficial aspects of kumara and honey are also being investigated.