Australian volcanic eruption may have lived on in Aboriginal stories
New research shows that a volcano in northeastern Australia last erupted around 7000 years ago - and stories passed down by the Gugu Badhun Aboriginal people suggest they were there to see it happen. In a paper published in the journal Quaternary Geochronology, geologists based in Scotland and Australia outline how they used a sophisticated rock dating technique to determine when the eruption occurred. They also describe a potential link between the volcanic eruption and stories from Aboriginal verbal traditions, which would have been passed down for around 230 generations - further back in time than even the oldest written historical records of Egypt or Mesopotamia. The team, from the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), the University of Glasgow, the University of St Andrews, the Australian National University, and James Cook University, examined rock samples from long lava flows around the Kinrara volcano in Queensland. The flows, which are up to 55 km long, are still clearly visible across the landscape around the volcano. Dr Benjamin Cohen, of the University of Glasgow and SUERC, said: "When people think of Australia, volcanoes are probably not the first thing that springs to mind, but they are actually more common than many people realise. For example, there are nearly 400 volcanic vents in north Queensland, which erupted over the last few million years, and Kinrara is one of the most recent." - The researchers used a technique known as argon-argon geochronology to learn more about the age of the volcano.
