The Newer Volcanics Province is a geological area which is a

volcanic field A volcanic field is an area of Earth's crust that is prone to localized volcanic activity. The type and number of volcanoes required to be called a "field" is not well-defined. Volcanic fields usually consist of clusters of up to 100 volcanoes ...

, formed by 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 Pro ...

across south-eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It covers an area of , with over 400 small

shield volcano A shield volcano is a type of volcano named for its low profile, resembling a warrior's shield lying on the ground. It is formed by the eruption of highly fluid (low viscosity) lava, which travels farther and forms thinner flows than the more v ...

es and

volcanic vent A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

s. The area contains the youngest

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...

es in Australia. The volcanoes date from the Late-

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togethe ...

ages. The area is characterised by flat lava flows, forming a plain above which rise numerous small

scoria cone Scoria is a pyroclastic, highly vesicular, dark-colored volcanic rock that was ejected from a volcano as a molten blob and cooled in the air to form discrete grains or clasts.Neuendorf, K.K.E., J.P. Mehl, Jr., and J.A. Jackson, eds. (2005) ''G ...

tuff ring Phreatomagmatic eruptions are volcanic eruptions resulting from interaction between magma and water. They differ from exclusively magmatic eruptions and phreatic eruptions. Unlike phreatic eruptions, the products of phreatomagmatic eruptions conta ...

s, and maars. The most recent eruptions in the region took place at

Mount Schank Mount Schank is a high dormant volcano in the southeast corner of South Australia, near Mount Gambier. It was sighted by James Grant on 3 December 1800 and named after Admiral John Schank, designer of Grant's ship, HMS '' Lady Nelson''. Moun ...

and

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 ...

, estimated about 5000 years BP, when several

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 shallow ...

s were formed and associated

lava flow Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a fracture in the crust, on land or und ...

s spread around the

cones A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...

Volcanoes

Prominent volcanoes within the province include: *

Mount Napier Mount Napier in Victoria, Australia, is one of the youngest volcanoes in Australia. It erupted about 32,000 years ago. It was named by Major Thomas Mitchell after the three Napier brothers, who he had served alongside during the Peninsular Wa ...

(including Blue Lake) *

Tower Hill Tower Hill is the area surrounding the Tower of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is infamous for the public execution of high status prisoners from the late 14th to the mid 18th century. The execution site on the higher grou ...

Mount Elephant Mount Elephant is a conical breached scoria cone formed by a dormant volcano, located 1 km from the town of Derrinallum in southwestern Victoria, Australia. It is a prominent landmark that forms the eastern gateway to the Kanawinka Geo ...

Mount Eccles Budj Bim, also known as Mount Eccles, is a dormant volcano near Macarthur in southwestern Victoria, Australia. It lies within the geologically-defined area known as the Newer Volcanics Province, which is the youngest volcanic area in Australi ...

(Budj Bim), with associated Tyrendarra lava flow *

Mount Leura Mount Leura is a 313-metre scoria cone surrounding a dry crater 100 m deep and is the central and most obvious component of a larger volcanic complex southeast of the town of Camperdown located in western Victoria, Australia, south west of the ...

Mount Noorat Mount Noorat is a dormant volcano, situated on Glenormiston Road north of the township of Noorat, and approximately six kilometres north of Terang, Victoria, Australia. The last eruption is estimated to have occurred between 5,000 and 20,000 ye ...

Mount Buninyong Mount Buninyong is an extinct volcano in western Victoria, Australia rising to AHD. It lies within the Mount Buninyong Scenic Reserve, north of the town of Buninyong and south of Ballarat, on the regional city's rural-urban fringe. Snow fa ...

Lake Bullen Merri Lake Bullen Merri and its smaller northern neighbour Lake Gnotuk are a pair of crater lakes near Camperdown in south western Victoria, Australia. Lake Bullen Merri has brackish water quality whereas Lake Gnotuk is hyper saline (twice as salt ...

* Lake Purrumbete * Red Rock

Aboriginal Dreamtime connections

History Three groups of

Aboriginal Australians Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands ...

, the

Kulin nation The Kulin nation is an alliance of five Aboriginal nations in south central Victoria, Australia. Their collective territory extends around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valley ...

in central and western Victoria, the

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 shallow ...

nation on the southwest coast of Victoria and the Bunganditj nation on the South Australian border with Victoria, are the

traditional owners Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

of the lands that the NVP is situated on. These Indigenous Australians tell Dreamtime stories regarding volcanic activity on the Australian continent. These stories act as oral histories of natural events, and can be utilised by modern scientists to understand historical geological and seismic activity on the continent. Budj Bim The

Gunditjmara The Gunditjmara or Gunditjamara, also known as Dhauwurd Wurrung, are an Aboriginal Australian people of southwestern Victoria. They are the traditional owners of the areas now encompassing Warrnambool, Port Fairy, Woolsthorpe and Portland. Their ...

people retell the story of their people who witnessed the creation of an important being known as Budj Bim, one of four giant beings who arrived in southeast Australia. While three of these beings strode out to other parts of the continent, one stayed in place; that was Budj Bim. His body transformed into the volcano later given the same name, and his teeth became the lava that transformed the landscape. Theories and Disagreements In 1878, Robert B. Smyth, a mining engineer and geologist, raised a question on how Aboriginal Australians get fire. He agreed that there were active volcanoes in Victoria; however, he claimed that there was uncertainty as to whether people actually inhabited that land. However, it was later proven that Smyth had an incomplete idea of Australia's geological past.

Volcanoes

Aboriginal Dreamtime connections

See also

References

Further reading