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Tasman Seamounts, Australia | John Seach
Tasman Sea, South East Australia
This Tasman line of fire is created by a mantle plume which gives rise to hotspot volcanoes underwater. The Tasman line of fire extends from Mt Erebus in Antarctica along the South East coast of Australia into the Tasman sea. The line is 4000 km long and fused about 55 million years ago, joining Lord Howe Island to the Australian plate. Mt Erebus now sits over the Tasman mantle plume.
The Tasmanian Seamounts Reserve covers about 370 square kilometres, and 15 of the 70 seamounts in the zone. Bottom trawling and petroleum and mineral exploration are banned. It is a protected area, declared in 1999, with 70 extinct volcanoes 170 kilometres south of Hobart.
Major seamounts are Queensland, Britannia, Derwent-Hunter, Lord Howe Island, Barcoo, Taupo, Gascoyne. Heemskirk, Zeehan, Soela.
Further reading
Vogt, P.R. and Conolly, J.R., 1971. Tasmantid Guyots, the age of the Tasman Basin, and motion between the Australia plate and the mantle. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 82(9), pp.2577-2584.
Slater, R.A. and Goodwin, R.H., 1973. Tasman sea guyots. Marine Geology, 14(2), pp.81-99.
McDougall, I. and Duncan, R.A., 1988. Age progressive volcanism in the Tasmantid Seamounts. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 89(2), pp.207-220.
Eruptions of Tasman Seamounts
56 million years ago (northern seamounts)
7 million years
(southern seamounts)