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Minerva Hills National Park
Minerva Hills is a national park in Central Queensland, Australia, 626 km northwest of Brisbane. Lookouts within the national park overlook the town of Springsure. The park features a rugged landscape with volcanic peaks, sheltered gorges, sheer cliffs, open woodlands and dry rainforest. The park lies within the water catchment areas of the Comet and Nogoa rivers and within the Brigalow Belt bioregion. There are four lookouts and a picnic area for visitors. Camping is not allowed in the park. Geology The Minerva Hills National Park sits on the Oligocene Minerva Hills Volcanics. These volcanics have been broadly divided into a basal series of mafic lavas (some 70 m thick) overlain by a series of intercalated mafic volcanics, felsic volcanics ranging from trachyte to rhyolite and trachytic pyroclastics. The pyroclastics are related to plugs and domes. The lower sequence has been dated at approximately 33 -34 Ma (million years) and the upper sequence 28.5–27.5 Ma. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Springsure, Queensland
Springsure is a town and a locality in the Central Highlands Region, Queensland, Australia. It is south of Emerald on the Gregory Highway. It is the southern terminus of the Gregory Highway and the northern terminus of the Dawson Highway. It is northwest of Brisbane. At the , Springsure had a population of 950 people. Geography Today, Springsure is a pastoral settlement serving cattle farms, and sunflower, sorghum, wheat and chickpea plantations. Springsure is the hub for several coal mines such as the Minerva Mine and the Rolleston Mine. Significant exploration is ongoing in the district. It is also a staging point for expeditions to Carnarvon National Park. History '' Gangalu (Gangulu, Kangulu, Kanolu, Kaangooloo, Khangulu)'' is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Gangula country. The Gangula language region includes the towns of Clermont and Springsure extending south towards the Dawson River. '' Wadja'' (also known as ''Wadjigu'', ''Wadya'', ''Wadjainngo'', '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trachyte
Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava enriched with silica and alkali metals. It is the volcanic equivalent of syenite. Trachyte is common wherever alkali magma is erupted, including in late stages of ocean island volcanismMacDonald 1983, pp. 51-52 and in continental rift valleys, above mantle plumes,Philpotts and Ague 2009, pp. 390-394 and in areas of back-arc extension. Trachyte has also been found in Gale crater on Mars. Trachyte has been used as decorative building stone and was extensively used as dimension stone in the Roman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Chemical composition Trachyte has a silica content of 60 to 65% and an alkali oxide content of over 7%. This gives it less SiO2 than rhyolite and more (Na2O plus K2O) than dacite. These chemical differences are consistent with the positio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Areas Established In 1994
Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although the mechanisms for providing protection vary widely, the basic meaning of the term remains the same. This is illustrated by an explanation found in a manual on electrical wiring: Some kind of protection is a characteristic of all life, as living things have evolved at least some protective mechanisms to counter damaging environmental phenomena, such as ultraviolet light. Biological membranes such as bark on trees and skin on animals offer protection from various threats, with skin playing a key role in protecting organisms against pathogens and excessive water loss. Additional structures like scales and hair offer further protection from the elements and from predators, with some animals having features such as spines or camouflage servin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Parks Of Central Queensland
National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, census-designated place * National, Nevada, ghost town * National, Utah, ghost town * National, West Virginia, unincorporated community Commerce * National (brand), a brand name of electronic goods from Panasonic * National Benzole (or simply known as National), former petrol station chain in the UK, merged with BP * National Car Rental, an American rental car company * National Energy Systems, a former name of Eco Marine Power * National Entertainment Commission, a former name of the Media Rating Council * National Motor Vehicle Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA 1900-1924 * National Supermarkets, a defunct American grocery store chain * National String Instrument Corporation, a guitar company formed to manufacture the first resonator g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protected Areas Of Queensland
Queensland is the second largest state in Australia. It contains around 500 separate protected areas. In 2020, it was estimated a total of 14.2 million hectares or 8.25% of Queensland's landmass was protected. List of terrestrial protected areas Conservation Parks * Anderson Street * Archer Point * Baddow Island * Baffle Creek * Bakers Creek * Baldwin Swamp * Bare Hill * Barubbra Island * Baywulla Creek * Beachmere * Beelbi Creek * Bell Creek * Bingera 1 * Bingera 2 * Bird Island * Blackwater * Bloomfield River * Bloomsbury * Boat Mountain 1 * Boat Mountain 2 * Bottle Creek * Boyne Island * Broadwater * Buccan * Buckleys Hole * Bullock Creek * Bullyard * Bunya Mountains * Bunyaville * Burleigh Knoll * Byron Creek * Cabbage Tree Point * Caloundra * Cape Pallarenda * Carbrook Wetlands * Carello Palm Swamp * Carraba * Causeway Lake * Charon Point * Combo 1 * Combo 2 * Coolmunda * Cooloothin * Coombabah Lake * Cressbrook * Currimundi Lake * Curr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hotspot (geology)
In geology, hotspots (or hot spots) are volcanic locales thought to be fed by underlying mantle that is anomalously hot compared with the surrounding mantle. Examples include the Hawaii, Iceland, and Yellowstone hotspots. A hotspot's position on the Earth's surface is independent of tectonic plate boundaries, and so hotspots may create a chain of volcanoes as the plates move above them. There are two hypotheses that attempt to explain their origins. One suggests that hotspots are due to mantle plumes that rise as thermal diapirs from the core–mantle boundary. The alternative plate theory is that the mantle source beneath a hotspot is not anomalously hot, rather the crust above is unusually weak or thin, so that lithospheric extension permits the passive rising of melt from shallow depths. Origin The origins of the concept of hotspots lie in the work of J. Tuzo Wilson, who postulated in 1963 that the formation of the Hawaiian Islands resulted from the slow movement of a tecton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minerva Hills-1
Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the Romans equated her with the Greek goddess Athena.''Larousse Desk Reference Encyclopedia'', Book People, Haydock, 1995, p. 215. Minerva is one of the three Roman deities in the Capitoline Triad, along with Jupiter and Juno. She was the virgin goddess of music, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, weaving, and the crafts. She is often depicted with her sacred creature, an owl usually named as the " owl of Minerva", which symbolised her association with wisdom and knowledge as well as, less frequently, the snake and the olive tree. Minerva is commonly depicted as tall with an athletic and muscular build, as well as wearing armour and carrying a spear. As the most important Roman goddess, she is highly revered, honored, and respecte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyroclastic Rock
Pyroclastic rocks (derived from the el, πῦρ, links=no, meaning fire; and , meaning broken) are clastic rocks composed of rock fragments produced and ejected by explosive volcanic eruptions. The individual rock fragments are known as pyroclasts. Pyroclastic rocks are a type of volcaniclastic deposit, which are deposits made predominantly of volcanic particles. 'Phreatic' pyroclastic deposits are a variety of pyroclastic rock that forms from volcanic steam explosions and they are entirely made of accidental clasts. 'Phreatomagmatic' pyroclastic deposits are formed from explosive interaction of magma with groundwater. Unconsolidated accumulations of pyroclasts are described as tephra. Tephra may become lithified to a pyroclastic rock by cementation or chemical reactions as the result of the passage of hot gases (fumarolic alteration) or groundwater (e.g. hydrothermal alteration and diagenesis) and burial, or, if it is emplaced at temperatures so hot that the soft glassy pyrocl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhyolite
Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral assemblage is predominantly quartz, sanidine, and plagioclase. It is the extrusive equivalent to granite. Rhyolitic magma is extremely viscous, due to its high silica content. This favors explosive eruptions over effusive eruptions, so this type of magma is more often erupted as pyroclastic rock than as lava flows. Rhyolitic ash-flow tuffs are among the most voluminous of continental igneous rock formations. Rhyolitic tuff has been extensively used for construction. Obsidian, which is rhyolitic volcanic glass, has been used for tools from prehistoric times to the present day because it can be shaped to an extremely sharp edge. Rhyolitic pumice finds use as an abrasive, in concrete, and as a soil amendment. Description Rhyolite i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mafic
A mafic mineral or rock is a silicate mineral or igneous rock rich in magnesium and iron. Most mafic minerals are dark in color, and common rock-forming mafic minerals include olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, and biotite. Common mafic rocks include basalt, diabase and gabbro. Mafic rocks often also contain calcium-rich varieties of plagioclase feldspar. Mafic materials can also be described as ferromagnesian. History The term ''mafic'' is a portmanteau of "magnesium" and "ferric" and was coined by Charles Whitman Cross, Joseph P. Iddings, Louis Valentine Pirsson, and Henry Stephens Washington in 1912. Cross' group had previously divided the major rock-forming minerals found in igneous rocks into ''salic'' minerals, such as quartz, feldspars, or feldspathoids, and ''femic'' minerals, such as olivine and pyroxene. However, micas and aluminium-rich amphiboles were excluded, while some calcium minerals containing little iron or magnesium, such as wollastonite or apatite, were included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Queensland Parks And Wildlife Service
The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) is a business division of the Department of Environment and Science within the Government of Queensland. The division’s primary concern is with the management and maintenance of protected areas within Queensland, to protect and manage Queensland’s parks, forests and the Great Barrier Reef for current and future generations. The QPWS managed areas include more than 1000 national parks, state forests, marine parks and other protected areas, and five world heritage areas. Of these, 220 are national parks. Queensland’s first national park, Witches Falls (in today’s Tamborine National Park), was established on 28 March 1908, followed by Bunya Mountains National Park in July 1908, and then Lamington National Park in 1915. From modest early beginnings within the Forestry department, a dedicated national parks service was established in 1975—the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. From that time, park rangers have proudly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the epoch are slightly uncertain. The name Oligocene was coined in 1854 by the German paleontologist Heinrich Ernst Beyrich from his studies of marine beds in Belgium and Germany. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''olígos'', "few") and (''kainós'', "new"), and refers to the sparsity of extant forms of molluscs. The Oligocene is preceded by the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch. The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period. The Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition, a link between the archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern ecosystems of the Miocene. Major changes during the Oligocene included a global expansion o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
