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Where is it?Egmont National Park , New Zealand [ -39.3019245 , 174.0631103 ]

What ’s in the photo?Mount Taranaki vent surrounded by the " Goblin Forest "

A satellite image of a volcano with a near=perfect ring of dark green trees around its peak

The slopes of New Zealand’s Mount Taranaki is surrounded by Egmont National Park, which consists of a near perfect circle of trees, including warped goblin-like trunks.

Which satellite took the photo?Landsat 8

When was it taken?June 10 , 2023

This striking satellite image shows the snow - capped peak of a " sanctified " volcano in New Zealand , poking through an spookily circular timberland moderate thousands of warped , goblin - same trees .

A man walking through giant twisted trees in a forest

The “Goblin Forest” section of Egmont National Park consists of a warped group of kāmahi trees (Pterophylla racemosa).

Mount Taranaki , which was originally named Mount Egmont by British explorer James Cook in the 18th century , is an active stratovolcano located on the west coast of New Zealand ’s North Island . It stands at around 8,261 feet ( 2,518 time ) above sea level , make it the North Island ’s second - tallest top behind Mount Ruapehu — a 9,177 - foot - tall ( 2,797 m ) vent that acted as themovie doubly for parts of the fancied land of Mordor in the " Lord of the Rings " movies .

The near - perfect ring of dark green surrounding Mount Taranaki ’s gradient is Egmont National Park , which is around 12 miles ( 19 kilometers ) across at its wide point . The park ’s forest is for the most part made up of two coinage of orotund evergreen plant trees , rimu ( Dacrydium cupressinum ) and kāmahi ( Pterophylla racemosa ) , consort toNASA ’s Earth Observatory .

A part of kāmahi Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree near the volcano ’s summit is eff as the " Goblin Forest " because the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree there are super twisted and deformed as a resultant of accept to grow over and around the fossilized cadaver of trees that were ruin in preceding irruption . These trees are also covered in hang mosses and liverworts , which adds to their creepy-crawly appearing .

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In 2017 , the New Zealand political science grant Mount Taranaki the " same sound rights as a person " due to its sacred status among local Māori tribe , who consider the vent to be an ascendant and a family extremity , The Guardian report at the prison term .

" The status is an acknowledgment of the Indigenous Māori people ’s relationship to the plenty and entail that harming the mickle has the same effectual entailment as harm the folk , " Earth Observatory example wrote .

A satellite photo showing snow at the top of a mountains from above

Mount Taranaki is renowned for having a well-nigh - perfect cone Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe , away from the smaller corpse of two extinct volcanoes site on its northeast flank ( which are visible in the satellite photograph ) . As a resolution , the vent was used as a image for the every bit symmetrical Mount Fuji in Japan during the cinematography of the 2003 celluloid " The Last Samurai , " according toNewZealand.com .

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However , despite its uniform appearing , the volcano ’s shape has changed often and dramatically over time . A2021 studyestimated that Mount Taranaki ’s building — the part of the volcano that organise above land — has undergo at least 16 substantial deformations from preceding extravasation since it first constitute around 135,000 years ago .

Mount Taranaki experienced its last major volcanic eruption around 200 years ago but is still considered active and sporadically spits out volcanic mudflows , or lahars . Researchers currently predict that there is a 30 % to 50 % prospect of another major bam in the next 50 long time , which could potentially impact more than 100,000 people who live near the volcano , accord to theTaranaki Emergency Management Office .

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