Tomahawk Lagoon
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Tomahawk Lagoon is a twin-lobed
lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') an ...
, located at the western end of the
Otago Peninsula The Otago Peninsula () is a long, hilly indented finger of land that forms the easternmost part of Dunedin, New Zealand. Volcanic in origin, it forms one wall of the eroded valley that now forms Otago Harbour. The peninsula lies south-east of Ot ...
within the city limits of
Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...
,
New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...
. It lies close to the southeastern edge of the city's main urban area, near the suburb of Ocean Grove, which lies close to its southern shore. This suburb was also known as Tomahawk until the 1930s.


Name

The name "Tomahawk", documented in the ''Otago Witness'' from 1852, is unlikely to be a reference to the
weapon A weapon, arm, or armament is any implement or device that is used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime (e.g., murder), law ...
. It is more likely an anglicized form of the
Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
words ''toma haka'', often interpreted as "dance by a gravesite". ''Toma'' means a place of bones, or shrine for bones; ''haka'' is here taken to mean the Māori dance of challenge, but may rather be the Southern Māori form of the word ''hanga'', to build or create. However, there are no known pre-European burial sites or reported finds of human bones in the area.


Physical geography

The lagoon, which is connected by a short stream to the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
, is noted for its bird life. Despite its name, it is never inundated with the sea, but is more of a shallow coastal lake, predominantly under in depth. The top lagoon (inner lobe) is a wildlife reserve. Tomahawk Lagoon is separated from the sea at low tide by
Tomahawk Beach Tomahawk Beach is a beach on the Pacific Ocean southeast of the city centre of Dunedin, New Zealand. Located within the Ocean Grove, New Zealand, Ocean Grove Reserve between Ocean Beach, Otago, St Kilda Beach and Smaills Beach, at the point w ...
, which runs east from the Lagoon's mouth for about . A smaller beach, Smaills Beach, lies further to the east, beyond which is the outcrop of Maori Head, from the lagoon's mouth. A rocky reef and the small Bird Island lie close to the headland. To the west of the lagoon's mouth is the prominent headland of Lawyers Head, a major Dunedin landmark. The outer lobe (the Bottom Lagoon) is the larger, being some in length and wide at its widest point. It is roughly a
parallelogram In Euclidean geometry, a parallelogram is a simple polygon, simple (non-list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting) quadrilateral with two pairs of Parallel (geometry), parallel sides. The opposite or facing sides of a parallelogram a ...
in shape, and covers an area of close to . The Top Lagoon joins the Bottom Lagoon via a short stream in the middle of the latter's eastern shore. It is roughly triangular, being in length and in width, and covers an area of some . The total area of the lagoon is thus some . The total catchment area of the lagoon is . Several small streams flow through the steep valleys which lie to the north and northeast. The largest of these is Lagoon Creek, which flows from near
Arthur's Seat Arthur's Seat (, ) is an ancient extinct volcano that is the main peak of the group of hills in Edinburgh, Scotland, which form most of Holyrood Park, described by Robert Louis Stevenson as "a hill for magnitude, a mountain in virtue of its bol ...
for some before feeding the Top Lagoon at its northeastern end. Owing to the
pastoral The pastoral genre of literature, art, or music depicts an idealised form of the shepherd's lifestyle – herding livestock around open areas of land according to the seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. The target au ...
nature of much of the surrounding land, nutrient runoff into the lake is frequently high, resulting in its often
eutrophic Eutrophication is a general term describing a process in which nutrients accumulate in a body of water, resulting in an increased growth of organisms that may deplete the oxygen in the water; ie. the process of too many plants growing on the s ...
nature.S. F. Mitchell (1974) "Phosphate, Nitrate, and Chloride in a Eutrophic Coastal Lake in New Zealand
(abstract)


References

{{reflist Geography of Dunedin Otago Peninsula Lagoons of Otago Wetlands of Otago