Explosive Landscape > Geology
The gently rounded shapes of "the mount"
give little hint today of the explosive
violence of its past.
Aboriginal legends tell of "mountains of fire"
when spectacular volcanoes threw out fountains of scoria froth and occasional
large blocks of solid lava or "bombs".
If the exploding magma encountered water near the surface, the
explosion was particularly dramatic!
The water became super-heated, creating a huge head of steam,
which blasted the magma and surrounding rocks into clouds of
fine ash or tuff onto the outer rim of what is known as a maar.
The Mt Leura complex is one of the largest
maar and tuff rings in Victoria and is a rare example of
a "nested maar."
After the original broad shallow crater was formed, volcanic activity within it caused the creation of
more than twenty scoria cones, of which Mt Leura and Mt
Sugarloaf are the largest.
Today, from the summit of Mt Leura, the wider rim can be seen
in the distance, encircling the "nested" cones.
Although the vast volcanic plain, known as the Kanawinka Geopark, was formed 2 − 4.5
million years ago, the Leura maar was formed
only 10,000 − 40,000 years ago and is considered
dormant rather than active! Click
on the maps below to take a tour of the maar.
Explosive Landscape > Geology > Flora > Fauna > Cultural Heritage
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