The ages of deep sediment layers within Lake Eacham suggest the maar eruption that formed it occurred a little over 9,000 years ago. It engulfed the landscape, leaving a maar lake as a legacy. Such stories can only coarsely bracket the time of eruptions, but supply considerable ancillary detail about what happened before, during and after they occurred.Įven though it was the middle of the day, the sky turned blackish-red, and the ground cracked and heaved. It's a testament to the extraordinary efficacy of transgenerational storytelling in Aboriginal cultures. This is similar territory to the demonstrable recollection by Aboriginal peoples of meteorite falls and postglacial sea-level rise that occurred several thousand years ago. Geography of oral historiesĪnother approach involves interpreting oral stories recorded by Australian Aboriginal peoples as memories of eruptions, from eyewitness accounts of these. So ages have generally been determined by proxy, by dating what lavas or ash layers buried, or what lies above them. This is largely because many of its products are undatable, often weathered to the point where no fresh material remains. For all that, there is no doubt that volcanic activity occurred here.ĭetermining its chronology, though, has proved difficult. More remarkably still, the precise cause(s) of the volcanic activity in these areas remains somewhat elusive. In southern Australia and northern Queensland, volcanic activity likely happened within the past 10,000 years. Volcanism has generally not occurred in Australia since it was first inhabited, perhaps 65,000 years ago, but there are two exceptions. Compared to similar-sized Europe or the continuous US, Australia is remarkably benign volcanically.
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