There has not been any eruptions in Australia in this century. The most recent eruption in Australia was at Mt. Gambier, a shield volcano in the Newer Volcanic Province, Victoria. The Newer Volcanics Province in Victoria Australia is made of four shield volcanoes and associated vents: Red Rock, Mt. Napier, Mt. Schank, and Mt. Gambier. They last erupted between 5850 and 2900 B.C. The eruptions were explosive and some generated lava flows. It is impossible to say if the volcanoes will erupt again. However, there have been rare earthquakes in the area, most recently in 1976. There are numerous volcanic islands north and east of Australia including North Island, New Zealand, the islands of Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, New Britian, and Indonesia. There are numerous interesting volcanic provinces in Australia. There are flood basalts of Cambrian age (about 650 million years old) northeast of Halls Crossing in northern Australia. Volcanism commenced about 70 million years ago at volcanic centers in southeast Queensland and northeast South Wales. Compositions range from basalt to rhyolite and includes shields, plugs, and domes. In north Queensland there are some very long basaltic lava flows. For example, at Undara a flow is 100 miles (160 km) long.
Geo science Australia monitors seismic data from more than 60 stations on the Australian National Seismograph Network and in excess of 300 stations worldwide in near real-time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Most of the 40 samples per second data are delivered within 30 seconds of being recorded at the seismometer to Geo science Australia’s central processing facility in Canberra through various digital satellite and broadband communication systems. This allow the government the ability to give advanced warnings of potential eruptions.
Sources of Information:
Johnson, R.W., 1976, Volcanism in Australia: Elsevier, New York, 405 p.
Johnson, R.W., Knutson, J., and Taylor, S.R., 1989, Intraplate volcanism in eastern Australia and New Zealand: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, 408 p.
Simkin, T., and Siebert, L., 1994, Volcanoes of the world: Geoscience Press, Tucson, Arizona, 349 p.
Very informative post about Australia's volcanic activity! I found similar findings about Romania however the potential for volcanic activity hasn't been ruled out by geologists and geophysicists in my target country. Some of the volcanos in Australia, I am speculating, may be dormant and it would be interesting to see if there is any research about that. Regardless of whether there may be volcanic eruptions or not in the future, it certainly looks like Australia is well equipped to provide warnings about volcanic eruptions. Impressive!
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