Mount Scoria Conservation Park is a park near
Thangool, Queensland
Thangool is a rural town and locality in the Shire of Banana, Queensland, Australia. In the , the locality of Thangool had a population of 741 people.
Geography
Thangool is north west of the state capital, Brisbane and south of the Shire a ...
in
Central Queensland
Central Queensland is an ambiguous geographical division of Queensland ( a state in Australia) that centres on the eastern coast, around the Tropic of Capricorn. Its major regional centre is Rockhampton. The region extends from the Capricorn Coa ...
,
Australia, about south-east of
Biloela
Biloela ( ) is a rural town and locality in Shire of Banana, Central Queensland, Australia. It is situated inland from the port city of Gladstone at the junction of the Burnett and Dawson highways. Biloela is the administrative centre of Banana ...
.
It is within the traditional lands of the
Gangulu
The Gangulu people, also written Kangulu, Kanolu, Kaangooloo, Ghungalu and other variations, are an Aboriginal Australian people from the Mount Morgan area in Queensland, Australia.
Name
At least one variant name for the Kangulu, ''Kaangooloo' ...
aboriginal people. It features Mount Scoria, a mountain whose peak is about above the surrounding plains. The mountain was once an active
volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...
, approximately 20 to 26 million years ago.
It features unusual and impressive basalt columns, the same type which make up the
Giant's Causeway
The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption. It is located in County Antrim on the north coast of Northern Ireland, about three miles (5 km) northeast of ...
,
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
. As the volcano's lava cooled, it formed distinct columns or pillars with five to eight sides, called columnar basalt. When hit on the tops with a hammer, the columns make musical notes of varying pitch.
Activities conducted in the park include animal and birdwatching as well as bushwalking.
See also
*
Protected areas of Queensland
Queensland is the second largest state in Australia. It contains around 500 separate protected areas. In 2020, it was estimated a total of 14.2 million hectares or 8.25% of Queensland's landmass was protected.
List of terrestrial protected a ...
*
List of places with columnar basalt
Columnar jointed volcanic rocks exist in many places on Earth. Perhaps the most famous basalt lava flow in the world is the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, in which the vertical joints form polygonal columns and give the impression of ha ...
References
Conservation parks of Queensland
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