A number of people mapped and commented on the region before the loss of the terraces. No Maori maps are known. The first colonial sketch map of the lake was by Percy Smith in 1858. Ferdinand Hochstetter carried out the first topographic and geological survey of the Lake Rotomahana area in 1859, producing four maps of the lake while camped on its shore; culminating in his defining "Method of Squares" (or Grid) lake map of 30/4/1859. His lake research was later published in his "Geographic and Geological survey" where the formation of the terraces was also examined. A commissioned map by August Petermann was included in that work and this was considered valid until 2011 when Sascha Nolden discovered Hochstetter's original maps in Switzerland and repatriated them to New Zealand in digital form. In 2017 the Hochstetter and Petermann maps were compared and Petermann's map found defective. Hochstetter's 30/4/1859 map is now considered the more accurate map of Lake Rotomahana.