Pumice Most people associate detritus with rubbish that has washed up on a beach or lake shore. Today that’s easy to understand why. But it refers to anything and everything that is washed up. The pumice that I have painted and photographed I collected from Lake Taupo in New Zealand. There’s so much, it only took me ten minutes to fil l a shopping bag. Lake Taupo is the largest fresh water lake in New Zealand. It was formed by t he Taupo Volcano, which first erupted 26,500 years ago. The last time it erupted in 232 CE, the eruption turned the sky red over China and Rome. Pumice is formed when gas bubbles are trapped in the rock during rapid cooling of the gas-rich magma. The pumice I collected along the shore line of Lake Taupo is the kind of detritus I like to see washed up.
