Does Australia Have Volcanoes? How Were They Formed?

he movement of the tectonic plates causing a shaking of the Earth’s surface, is an earthquake. Seismographs are instruments that can measure the size of an earthquake, from a tremor to a major event, as they are happening almost unceasingly. Some earthquakes can cause major events like broken dams, landslides, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and destruction of cities. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2015) The densest areas of the map – appendix 2 – is around Indonesia and New Zealand. This is because they are on plate boundaries, since the plates can cause earthquakes from the contact between them. The size of the earthquakes are also a lot more extreme around places that are right on the border of two or more tectonic plates. (Anon., 2015)

- Does Australia have volcanoes? How were they formed? …show more content…
This is because Australia is right in the middle of a plate, and no plate boundaries intersect the continent. There are two active volcanoes on the Australian territories of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, located around 4000 kilometres south west of Perth. Regions in the Asia pacific like New Zealand, Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, all contain many active volcanoes, due to the rich magma around this area. Evidence of volcanoes can be found in many parts of Australia, especially extensive volcanism following the east coast, around 60 million years ago. This may have been caused by the flow of lava that is triggered by dykes and pipes that are spread over a large area. (Geoscience,