Abstract
In Queensland, there was widespread basaltic igneous activity along the coast from the Cainozoic into the Holocene. The McBride Province in northeastern Queensland contains two long lava flows ~190,000 years old; one extends 160 km and is one of the longest lava flows on the planet. Over sixty caves have been mapped in these flows, totaling more than 7 km of passages. The longest single section is 1350 m. The caves are mostly unbranched, up to 18 m high and wide, and single level; internal features showing details of successive lava flows are easily visible. The caves most likely formed when ropy surface lava sheets were lifted up (inflated) by consecutive pulses of lava injected below an initial crust. In southeastern Queensland, Holy Jump Lava Cave occurs within basalts 21–26 million years old. The ~60 m long cave has remnants of the original smoothly arched glazed walls, and is among the oldest well-dated lava caves anywhere in the world.
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Middleton, G.J., Kempe, S., Webb, J.A. (2023). Queensland Lava Caves. In: Webb, J., White, S., Smith, G.K. (eds) Australian Caves and Karst Systems. Cave and Karst Systems of the World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24267-0_16
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