Storage and borrow-pits on old dunes near the mouth of the Whangaehu River

The younger dunes at top run in lines driven by north-west winds. At left, within the western river bend, older dunes, originally more massive and with a cover of volcanic ash, have been reshaped by the flow of water into the form of the loop and progressively abandoned. (The loop is migrating downstream.) The soils on the flat are sandy with some river silts with good topsoils. The intricate pock-marks on the surface of the dunes are storage pits, or borrow-pits (lying in an arc to the south) for sand to place on gardens on the flat land. Their size is accentuated by the collapse of the topsoil crust through which the pits had been cut. Two rectangular depressions marking house floors also show, each about 15 m long. The river itself is about 80 m wide and the two points are each 1.2 km long. The photograph was taken in 1942.