which lie to the southwest of Tongariro. The national park is a dual World Heritage Site for its outstanding natural and intangible cultural values. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing hiking route passes between Tongariro and Ngauruhoe. Mount Tongariro and its surroundings are also one of the several locations which Peter Jackson chose to shoot The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Eruptive history The oldest recorded volcanism in the area was at 933,000 ± 46,000 years ago at Hauhungatahi, northwest of Ruapehu. There is then a gap in identified materials until a small lava inlier on the western side of Tongariro that has been dated at 512,000 ± 59,000 years ago and is essentially buried by more recent activity. The cone and ring-plain of the complex has multiple eruptive centres aligned with the Taupō volcanic rift and bounded by the Waihi and Poutu fault zones. The formation of these began about 304,000 years ago in the Tama lakes area and definitely was established by 230,000 years ago. The eruptive centres extend from the Te Maari craters in the northeast to the Tama Lakes in the southwest and include the more classic cone of Mount Ngauruhoe which like North Crater, another symmetrical but smaller cone, required the absence of ice after the last ice age to form. Tongariro displays evidence for extensive Quaternary glaciation in the form of moraines and lava-ice interaction textures. However Pukeonake is off this axis, approximately 6 km west of the linear vent zone, but is considered to be a satellite vent. There was an intense period of large explosive eruptions around 11,000 years ago from multiple vents between Tongariro and Ruapehu (the Pahoka-Mangamate sequence). 2012 Te Māri eruptions After a period of volcanic unrest that had resulted in an increase in alert level on 20 July 2012, at 11:50 pm (NZST, UTC+12) on 6 August 2012, Mt Tongariro had what was initially believed to be a hydrothermal eruption after this increased activity. The eruption occurred at the Te Māri Craters, which had not had a major ash eruption since 1897 and had been dormant since September 1899. The eruption occurred in a new vent below the Upper Te Māri crater, and sent blocks as large as in size up to from the vent. An ash cloud high deposited ash into the surrounding area, especially to the east of the volcano. The ash cloud travelled in four hours.