Geoscientists collecting crust samples on the CSIRO ship RV Investigator. Lead author Dr Ben Mather is third from right.
Australia’s east coast is littered with the remnants of hundreds of volcanoes – the most recent just a few thousand years old – and scientists have been at a loss to explain why so many eruptions have occurred over the past 80 million years.
Now, geoscientists at the University of Sydney have discovered why part of a stable continent like Australia is such a hotbed of volcanic activity. And the findings suggest there could be more volcanic activity in the future.
“We aren’t on the famous Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ that produces so many volcanoes and earthquakes,” said Dr Ben Mather from the School of Geosciences and the EarthByte group at the University of Sydney.
“So, we needed another explanation why there have been so many volcanoes on Australia’s…
