by Stephanie, exploration geologist, graduate research student (MSc) at University of Tasmania
Unsuspectingly lurking next to the massive metropolis of Melbourne, Australia, is a region of young and active volcanoes! This volcanic province covers an area >23,000 km in the southern state of Victoria. The volcanoes here are dormant, but still active, with the last eruption ~5000 years ago at Mt. Gambier.
The landscape is flat due to extensive plains of basalt, but it is riddled with features like volcanic scoria cones, maars, shield volcanoes, etc.
I recently jumped on the opportunity to head across the water from Tassie to check out some of these stunning and ideal landforms on a trip lead by Dr. David Cooke and Dr. Rebecca Carey from our geology department at the University of Tasmania. Hopefully in this blog post I can share my travels to some of these young volcanic features and show what they look like and how they formed.