Australia 2 – Volcanic Activity in Northern and Central Queensland

Volcanic fields and provinces in Queensland. Image screen capture courtesy Jones Thesis 2018, Evolution and migration of Cenozoic Australia.

 

I originally intended to cover all volcanic fields and provinces I could find in Queensland.  Turns out there were a lot of them, so many that the post grew too large.  Will limit this post to northern and central Queensland, and bundle southern Queensland with New South Wales in Part 3, the next post.  With that being said, let’s take a look at Queensland.

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My Personal Field Trip to the Maar-Diatreme Volcanoes of the Eifel Volcanic Field (DE)

The now beautiful Holzmaar erupted 25 000 years ago. Sediment drill cores from here are used in comparative studies in both the Greenland Ice Sheet and Ice Core projects. (Photo: geopark-vulkaneifel.de)

A maar is a hole in the ground, of volcanic origin… what else?… caused by interaction with water… That was about all I knew about maars when I prepared for this year’s holiday, in the German Eifel maars area (Vulkaneifel, Rheinland-Pfalz district). I did not expect to find a great lot of evidence for former volcanic activity. Probably all covered by sediments or eroded, mined away or grown over – that’s what I thought. Mind you, it was not the famous Laacher See caldera I visited which had produced a VEI 6 eruption some 13 000 years ago.