Bunya Mountains

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A brook in the Bunya Mountains National Park

The Bunya Mountains are a mountain range in Queensland in Australia, which was formed in front of 23 to 24 million years ago by lava that leaked from fissures in the earth and shield volcanoes.

Location

The mountain is part of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, stretching from the north of the Darling Downs at Bell to Dalby, Kingaroy and Nanango. The highest mountains of the mountains are Mount Kiangarow with 1135 meters and Mount Mowbullan with 1086 meters. In the northeast, the Bunya Mountains form the water catchment area of ​​the Burnett River and in the south west of the Condamine River.

Geology

The first lava of the Bunya Mountains flowed over a country that consisted of sediments eroded mountains which were formed in front of 200 million to 180 million in the Mesozoic and partly in the Paleozoic. First of lava flowed into the valleys and then emerged shield volcanoes. The lava that hardened into basalt, extended over the whole area, except a discharge of trachyte on the southwest flank of the mountain. The volcanoes formed a territory that extends from the southern Main Range of the border of New South Wales, north to Kingaroy after, because the lava had a lower viscosity. The deposited lava is different and reaches at Mount Kiangarow a thickness of 700 meters and was originally 1100 meters thick. On average, the height of the basalt layer is 3 to 6 meters.

Other volcanoes that emerged at the same time near the Bunya Mountains are of volcanic complex Focal Peak Volcano at Mount Barney and Tweed Volcano, which formed near the Lamington Plateau and the Border Range.

The volcanoes created by a hotspot, which was below the Bunya Mountains. In the time of the creation of the volcanoes, the climate was cool and when the Australian continent migrated north, it was dry. Warm and subtropical rainforests were pushed back by the developing drought. It spread to eucalypts and rainforests retreated to areas with higher rainfall back.

Aboriginal

For the Aborigines, the Queensland Araucaria (Araucaria bidwillii ) was - Bunya Pine locally called - of great importance. It is a tree of the Bunya Mountains, which is up to 30 to 45 feet tall, with a trunk circumference of 1.5 m and basaltic soils preferred. The Bunya nut reaches the football size, a Kg will be heavy and contains 100 to 200 seeds, was collected by the Aborigines in the area of the southern North Queensland from December to March to collectively as bush food. The seeds were eaten raw or roasted, processed into flour or baked into bread. The nut also had significance in ceremonies, trade, weddings and other occasions. Recently, the wood of the tree is used to build guitars.

Tourism

Large areas of the Bunya Mountains are located in the protected Bunya Mountains National Park, the second oldest national park in Queensland, which was established in 1908. In the park there are picnic areas, hiking trails, camping sites and holiday homes.

In the mountains, parrots and Platt tail parakeets, wallabies, bush chicken, koalas, echidnas and Possum hold on.