Unlike Hawaii, the youngest land on earth, or New Zealand which lies on the Pacific Rim of Fire Australia is not terribly close to volcanic activity.
The last volcanic eruption on mainland Australia was about 5000 years ago near Mt Gambier, although there are volcanoes in Antarctic Australian territories Big Ben on Heard Island and Mawson Peak on McDonald Island. Read more here, a learning web-based activity with lots of links.
I've been to Hawaii, and I've been to Chillagoe, North Queensland (many, many years ago, there are limestone caves there), but I have never visited the Australian lava caves at Undara. I'd love to go there!
So, now we have a Melbourne geologist warning that "Australia is long overdue for a volcanic eruption, and he says emergency authorities need to be better prepared".
Just quietly, I reckon there's a better chance of hell freezing over....
And I reckon we'll have some pretty good warning if we should have a volcanic eruption - there'll be plenty of seismic activity before the event. (I still think it's highly unlikey.) Earthquakes, yes... volcanos, no.
11 comments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Tusk
http://www.markrichardsgallery.com/west%20coast%20collection/Black%20Tusk%20Pines.jpg
Cheers
The volcanoe prediction is going straight to my flannery file. (That's where you file things that will never happen)
We can only hope that Associate Professor Joyce can quickly secure state subsidised, emergency research funding to avoid this alarming new crisis.
In the meantime, each and every one of us can help raise awareness by becoming more lava conscious.
Let’s all reduce our pyroclastic footprint and help save Australia!
Very pretty, Minicapt, but your Black Tusk is pissant compared to what we have in Oz.
Kae, did you know that you and many of your readers are living on the slopes of the the biggest volcano in the southern hemisphere?
Good one, Carpo.
I assume that you would store your flannery folder next to your forgettery folder.
Hi Mini
That single shot on its own is a great pic.
Yeah, Carpe.
Great isn't it. Something else for the geologically/geophysically illiterate to worry about.
Oh, come on Splice. How the hell do we reduce our pyroclastic flows, er, footprint? It's just wronwright making mischief, it's not all of us. Remember the lake?
Thanks Skeets, I recall a little about that. But the Tweed volcano is as dead as a dodo (or deader).
Innit?
No. We need to remember this.
So we can giggle and point at Tim Flim-flam when he's on his way down, knocked from his false pedestal of knowledge.
Yeah, Kae, deader than a dodo. The last time it erupted was about 20 million years ago. Mount Warning is the magma plug that has been keeping the beastie under control since then.
But of course, the Melbourne geologist is right when he says that Australia is "long overdue" for a volcanic eruption — 20 million years is a bloody long time to wait, and I think it is only fair that we get a go soon.
The doomsters should be paying attention to this more imminent threat due to arrive on 1 February 2019. Those predictions (made in 2002) are based on better science and are more likely to be correct than the warmerers' forecasts. If it happens, it will make global warming look positively benign.
Instead of wasting money on carbon taxes and anti-volcano devices, we should be building better rockets to intercept these accurately predictable and real threats to the planet.
BTW, Happy Equinox to all your readers. It occurred all over the planet about three hours ago at 07:18 am
Australian eastern standard time.
20M years ago... yep, it's due... ha ha ha
Hey! There's a huge dust storm just blown in here...
amazing, but didn't get any great pix of it. A few, but scratched around looking for the camera and then it was set to "night". grrr.
20M years ago... yep, it's due... ha ha ha
Hey! There's a huge dust storm just blown in here...
amazing, but didn't get any great pix of it. A few, but scratched around looking for the camera and then it was set to "night". grrr.
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