I am doing an assignment at school where I am posing as a disasters consultant. I have to write a report on an area near a dormant volcano,and the hazard they face. But I havn't been able to find any information on a dormant volcano so I was wondering if you could give me information on one. Pick any dormant volcano you want, but please include all the information you have on it. The project's due in just over a week so I'm counting on you!

rocky Debbie O'Doherty

Debbie,

How about using some volcanoes in Australia? You probably think of a volcano as a single tall mountain (like Mt. Fuji, Japan), but in Victoria, SE Australia there is a broad field of small volcanoes (called the Newer Volcanics Province) that I consider to be a single volcano. There are about 375 cinder cone volcanoes in an area about 300 km long. The eruptions that made the volcanoes lasted from 4.5 million years ago to about 4000 years ago. It is expected that future eruptions will also occur.

Now the edge of the NVP reaches north & west of Melbourne, so there should be a legitimate concern to evaluate volcanic hazards there. Near the town of Mt. Gambier are the youngest volcanoes, Mt Shank and Mt Gambier.

You need to do some research yourself. There is an article called Down Under Australia in volume 14, number 4, page 136-142 of Australian Natural History magazine that is about these volcanoes. And I bet you can find other, newer articles about Australian volcanoes and hazards. Good luck!

Chuck Wood, University of North Dakota 

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