Mount Gambier, also known as Berrin, is a

maar A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption (an explosion which occurs when groundwater comes into contact with hot lava or magma). A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallo ...

complex in

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

associated with the Newer Volcanics Province. The complex contains four maars, the most well-known one of which is

Blue Lake / Warwar Blue Lake / Warwar (The Blue Lake) is a large, monomictic, crater lake located in a dormant volcanic maar associated with the Mount Gambier maar complex. The lake is situated near in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia, and is one ...

. The others are Valley Lake / Ketla Malpi, Leg of Mutton Lake / Yatton Loo and Brownes Lake / Kroweratwari. The complex is partially surrounded by the city of

Mount Gambier Mount Gambier is the second most populated city in South Australia, with an estimated urban population of 33,233 . The city is located on the slopes of Mount Gambier, a volcano in the south east of the state, about south-east of the capital Ad ...

History

Mount Gambier is one of Australia's youngest volcanoes, but estimates of the age have ranged from over 28,000 to less than 4,300. The most recent estimate, based on

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was de ...

of plant fibres in the main crater ( Blue Lake) suggests an eruption a little before 6000 years ago. It is believed to be dormant rather than

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

. Mount Gambier is thought to have formed by a

mantle plume A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic hot ...

centre called the

East Australia hotspot The East Australia hotspot is a volcanic province in southeast Australia which includes the Peak Range in central Queensland, the Main Range on the Queensland-New South Wales border, Tweed Volcano in New South Wales, and the Newer Volcanics ...

which may currently lie offshore.Mt Gambier Volcano, Australia – John Search
/ref> The Boandik (or Bungandidj) people occupied the area before the colonisation of South Australia. They referred to the peak of the volcanic mountain as "ereng balam" or "egree belum", meaning "home of the eagle hawk", but the mountain itself was called Berrin.Christina Smith,
The Booandik Tribe of South Australian Aborigines: A Sketch of Their Habits, Customs, Legends, and Language
', Spiller, 1880 Their Dreaming story tells of a giant ancestor

creator being A creator deity or creator god (often called the Creator) is a deity responsible for the creation of the Earth, world, and universe in human religion and mythology. In monotheism, the single God is often also the creator. A number of monolatr ...

called Craitbul, who wandered the land with his family looking for a place to be safe from the evil spirit, Woor, and finding it. The lakes were the ovens he built: Warwar (Blue Lake), Ketlamalpe (Valley Lake), Yattonlu (Leg Mutton) and Kraweratwari (Browns Lake). It is believed that Craitbul lives sleeping at the bottom of Warwar. The mountain was sighted by Lieutenant

James Grant James Grant may refer to: Politics and law * Sir James Grant, 1st Baronet (died 1695), Scottish lawyer *Sir James Grant, 6th Baronet (1679–1747), Scottish Whig politician *Sir James Grant, 8th Baronet (1738–1811), Scottish member of parliament ...

on 3 December 1800 from the survey brig HMS Lady Nelson and named for Lord

James Gambier Admiral of the Fleet James Gambier, 1st Baron Gambier, (13 October 1756 – 19 April 1833) was a Royal Navy officer. After seeing action at the capture of Charleston during the American Revolutionary War, he saw action again, as captain of the ...

, Admiral of the Fleet. Brownes Lake was the site of Henty's cattle years in the 1840s and was named after Doctor Browne who lived at nearby Moorak station. The water level has fluctuated over the years, with it having a recorded depth of in 1899. Mutton Lake (named for the outline of its shoreline) and Brownes Lake dried up as the water table dropped, since the 1980s (Brownes) and Leg of Mutton (1990s). Both of these lakes were quite shallow; their demise is attributed to the lowering of the

water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

as a result of many years of land drainage to secure farmland.

Description

The Boandik people referred to Mount Gambier as Berrin. It has also been recorded as being named ereng balam or egree belum, probably meaning "the home of the eagle hawk" in the

Bungandidj language Bungandidj is a language of Australia, spoken by the Bungandidj people, Indigenous Australians who lived in an area which is now in south-eastern South Australia and in south-western Victoria. According to Christina Smith and her book on the B ...

. The lakes, as sites of cultural significance to the Boandik people, were assigned

dual name Dual naming is the adoption of an official place name that combines two earlier names, or uses both names, often to resolve a disagreement over which of the two individual names is more appropriate. In some cases, the reasons are political. Some ...

s by the

City of Mount Gambier The City of Mount Gambier is a local government area centred in Mount Gambier in the Limestone Coast region of South Australia. While it is the southernmost ''city'' council in the state, the District Council of Grant is the southernmost counc ...

in February 2022, and the renaming included the four lakes in the Bungandidj language. These are as follows: *Blue Lake / Warwar, meaning "crow country", or "the sound of many crows" *Leg of Mutton Lake / Yatton Loo (unknown meaning) *Brownes Lake / Kroweratwari, meaning "emus, rtheir tracks" *Valley Lake / Ketla Malpi, meaning "sacred talking tree" Blue Lake / Warwar and Valley Lake / Ketla Malpi are water-filled

volcanic lake A volcanogenic lake is a lake formed as a result of volcanic activity. They are generally a body of water inside an inactive volcanic crater (crater lakes) but can also be large volumes of molten lava within an active volcanic crater (lava lakes) ...

s, but Leg of Mutton Lake / Yatton Loo and Brownes Lake / KroweratwariSheard, M.J. (1978) "Geological History of the Mount Gambier Volcanic Complex, Southeast South Australia". ''Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia'' 102(5): 125–139, Aug. 1978 are dry. Brownes Lake is used as a picnic area. This area is part of the UNESCO-endorsed

Kanawinka Geopark The former Kanawinka Geopark is situated along a structurally controlling geological fault of the same name that extends from the Naracoorte Caves in South Australia into Western Victoria, before disappearing offshore at Portland. Descriptio ...

, and the city of

partially surrounds the maar complex.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gambier, Mount Volcanoes of South Australia Maars of Australia Complex volcanoes Hotspot volcanoes Dormant volcanoes Mount Gambier (volcano) Volcanic crater lakes VEI-4 volcanoes

History

Description

See also

References