MELBOURNE: The world’s longest chain of continental volcanoes, created over the past 33 million years, have been found in eastern Australia stretching for over 2,000km.
The volcanic chain runs from Cape Hillsborough on the central Queensland coast, south-west through central New South Wales to Cosgrove in Victoria. “This volcanic chain was created Australia moved north-northeast over a mantle plume hotspot which is now located in Bass Strait,” study’s lead author Rhodri Davies said.
“This track, which we’ve named the Cosgrove hotspot track, is nearly three times as long as the famous Yellowstone hotspot tracks in North Ameria ,” he said, adding, that this kind of volcanic activity was surprising because it occurs away from tectonic plate boundaries where most volcanoes are found.The volcanic chain is the most westerly of three major volcanic chains running along eastern Australia.
For the study the authors examined 15 extinct volcanoes in eastern Australia that had been known about for quite some time and the movement of the Australian tectonic plate. “The volcanoes in central Queensland showed an age progression, so they got younger towards the south, and so too did those in New South Wales and Victoria,” Davies said.
