Giants of the Pacific

The extinct volcano of Ma′unga Terevaka on the Pacific island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) is the site of the wonderful moai quarry. The area is made of Lapilli tuff, which the Pacific islanders used to fashion their unique monolithic statues that venerated the dead. Not all moai were completed and successfully hauled down to their ahu platforms on the coast, however, and so the slopes of the Rano Raraku crater are littered these abandoned, mysterious giants. Taken in December 2016, before the great fire of October 2022.