Photo by D.W. Peterson, courtesy of National Park Service
Tamworth is famous as the home of Australian country music. But 350 million years ago, some hardcore rock 'n' roll was also happening. Scientists at The Australian National University have discovered that granites in the New England area near Tamworth were produced by a remarkable process, whereby the magmas erupted from volcanoes turned to mud, then back to magma again, in a very rapid cycle. PhD student Heejin Jeon said 350 million years ago, while much of the world was geologically stable, the country capital was all shook up. "For about 50 million years, a chain of volcanoes erupted thick piles of ash and lava into a shallow sea near the edge of the Australian continent," Ms Jeon said. "Over time, the ash and lava turned into a massive pile of sediment that soon became buried so deeply that it began to melt. This melted sediment then rose towards the surface as molten magma, forming the granite rock formations, now exposed between Tamworth and Texas in Queensland.
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