Camperdown - Mount Leura Lookout

Perched on the rim of an ancient volcanic cone, Mount Leura Lookout offers one of the finest panoramic views in south-west Victoria. From the summit, visitors enjoy sweeping 360-degree views across Camperdown, the surrounding Volcanic Lakes and Plains, Mount Elephant, Lake Purrumbete and, on a clear day, even the distant Grampians approximately 100 kilometres away.

Unlike many hilltop lookouts, Mount Leura is easily accessible by car, with a sealed road leading directly to the summit. Several viewing areas, including Trigg Point Lookout and the Maar Lookout Walk (80m), provide different perspectives of the remarkable volcanic landscape. Interpretive signs explain how Mount Leura and neighbouring Mount Sugarloaf were formed and highlight the unique geology of the region.

The lookout is also the gateway to the Mount Leura and Mount Sugarloaf Reserves, where an extensive network of walking trails caters for all abilities. Visitors can enjoy short walks to additional viewpoints or tackle the steeper climb to the summit of Mount Sugarloaf for even more spectacular scenery. Picnic tables, shelters and information boards encourage visitors to spend time exploring the reserve.

Information Signage at Site

Looking south from this point on Mount Leura, you can see clear evidence of the major stages of volcanic activity that created the Leura Maar Complex (formed about 160,000 years ago). The Complex is one of the largest maar volcanoes in Victoria, if not globally, and a significant example of newer nested cones formed within an older maar crater.

HOW WAS THE LEURA MAAR COMPLEX FORMED?

STAGE 1 - THE BEGINNING:
Creation of the Leura Maar
Creation of the larger, older, more explosive, fast-forming Leura Maar (red line on diagram).

The Leura Maar is a 560 ha (1384 acres) oval-shaped depression about 2.5 km. (1.55 miles) long, 1.7 km (1.1 miles) wide, up to 50 metres (164 ft) deep and almost 9 km (5.6 miles) around its perimeter. The Camperdown township would comfortably fit within the Maar. Maars are not gigantic single cone volcanoes like you see in many movies. Instead, a maar is a shallow, wide, dish-shaped crater formed by expldsive interactions of magma and groundwater. A surrounding tuff ring (fine ash and rock) is formed of material blasted out of the crater during volcanic explosions that created the maar.

The maar developed quickly (probably in hours or days) when rising magma contacted groundwater near the surface. This caused a pressure build-up of superheated steam and gases that exploded via a 'vent' in the surface rock.

While some erupted material was thrown into the air, most was carried across the ground by base surges - highly turbulent, flows of steam, gas and ash triggered by the explosions. Continued eruptions widened the vent into a broad crater that formed the floor of the maar. Layers of fine ash and rock (tephra) were deposited, and built up around the crater's edge, creating a tuff ring.

STAGE 2 - THE FOLLOW UP:
Younger 'mountains of fire' form.
Volcanic cones within a volcanic crater - the formation Of newer, less explosive, but still spectacular nested cones.

Mount Leura, Mount Sugarloaf and more than twenty other scona cones and associated younger, smaller and often deeper craters, can be seen in the southern part of the maar. These are the result of vanous spectacular eruptions that formed scona cones that 'nest' inside the. older Leura Maar, occumng over an unknown penod of time, maybe months or years.

Without water, later eruptions in the maar were driven purely by magmatic gases (H20/ CO2). The volume of gas in the magma grew to the point that the magma was fragmented. It consisted of lumps of aerated magma, driven to the surface by gas, forming scoria. Volcanic bombs and blocks were also produced.

Scona cones and craters were built within the existing maar crater. Spectacular Hawaiian-style magma fire fountains produced all of the scoria cones seen in the Maar, including Mt Leura and Mt Sugarloaf.

The southern part of the Leura Maar Complex has numerous scoria cones and craters are 'nested' inside the older, larger leura maar - a rare and nationally significant landscape feature!

HOT FACTS:
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT THE DIFFERENCE IS BETWEEN MAGMA AND LAVA?
Magma is molten material beneath or within the Earth's crust, from which igneous rock is formed. When magma is expelled by a volcano and erupted onto the Earth's surface it is known as lava.

WHAT ARE BOMBS AND BLOCKS?
A volcanic block is a solid piece of rock that has been expelled from a volcano during an eruption, whereas a bomb is a blob of material ejected from an eruption in a molten state, and is shaped during flight. Bombs and blocks are both a minimum size of 64mm (2.5 in) in diameter.

AMAZING PLAINS FACTS
THE WESTERN VICTORIAN VOLCANIC PLAINS (also known as the Newer Volcanics Province):

Is made up of individual, smaller plains formed by lava from volcanic activity over the past eight million years.
Is the third largest volcanic plains in the world. More than 700 eruption points have been identified.
Extends from Melbourne in the east to Mount Gambier in South Australia in the west.
Covers an area of 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) - more than 10% of Victoria!
Is the site of Australia's most recent volcanic activity.
The average thickness of the lava flow across the volcanic plains is about 60m (197 ft).
Volcanic activity approximately 160,000 years ago created the Leura Maar Complex (which you're currently standing in) and features a series of nested cones formed within the pre-existing maar crater.
Most volcanoes in Western Victoria are extinct. However, the Newer Volcanics Province as a whole can be regarded as active, with eruptions occurring once every 15 -20,000 years. We're due for an eruption, although, hopefully, this is unlikely to happen in our lifetime.

LEURA MAAR WAS CREATED BY TWO STAGES OF VOLCANIC ACTIVITY

STAGE 1: The formation of the larger, older, more explosive, fast-forming Leura Maar (its boundary is the red line on the diagrams). Maars are not gigantic single cone volcanoes like you see in many movies. Instead, a maar is a shallow, wide, dish-shaped crater formed by explosive interactions of magma and groundwater, producing high pressure steam explosions through a vent(s) in the surface rock. The crater widens with further eruptions. A surrounding tuff ring (fine ash and rock) is formed of material blasted out of the crater during volcanic explosions that created the Maar.

Located on the south eastern edge of Camperdown, the Leura Maar is 560 ha (1384 acres) in size, with a perimeter of almost 9 km (5.6 miles). Maars form either in a single violent explosion (probably lasting hours or days at most, as with the Leura Maar), or as a result of several violent explosions, with periods of uncertain length between them e.g. Lake Bullen Merri.

STAGE 2: Volcanic cones within a volcanic crater - the formation of newer, less explosive, but still spectacular nested cones. Mount Leura, Mount Sugarloaf and more than twenty other scoria cones and associated younger, smaller and often deeper craters can be seen within the maar. These are all the result of various spectacular eruptions that formed scoria cones that 'nest' inside the older Leura Maar.

HOW WERE MT LEURA & MT SUGARLOAF FORMED?
When scoria fountained from the Mount Leura crater, MOUNT SUGARLOAF and MOUNT LEURA were formed on the rim of the crater (the green line on the diagrams). At some stage, the scoria fountained in one direction onto the rim of the crater, creating an almost perfect cone - Mount Sugarloaf. This is a most unusual occurrence.

A view across the WESTERN VICTORIAN VOLCANIC PLAINS
FROM THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT LEURA, MANY VOLCANIC AND OLDER ROCK FEATURES OF WESTERN VICTORIA ARE VISIBLE
The sandstone ridges of the Grampians form the bulky ranges on the horizon to the north-west, while more faintly to the north are the older rocks of the Central Highlands near Ballarat. Almost all the other landforms seen from this point are the result of volcanic activity.

Major volcanic features include the singe scoria cone of Mount Elephant (the largest scoria cone in Victoria), the multi-vent complex of Mt Noorat and the multiple eruption complexes forming the Wiridgil Hills and Red Rock. The latter two are both older than Mount Leura but are still regarded as geologically young features, being much less than 1 million years old. By contrast, the rocks of the Grampians and Central Highlands are from 400 to 500 million years old.

Most of the Western District of Victoria is covered by lava flows of the Western Victorian Volcanic Plains, with a thin capping of tuff or scoria, in places. The older lava flows have been deeply weathered, producing rich volcanic soils with few surface rocks. More recent flows, such as from Mount Porndon, have amazingly rough, rocky surfaces (called 'stony rises') that are extremely difficult to traverse. Most of the Western Victorian Volcanic Plains have long been cleared of trees and native grasses and developed for grazing.

AS LITTLE AS 1% OF THE ORIGINAL VEGETATION REMAINS TODAY, THEREFORE THE 'STONY RISES' ARE IMPORTANT CONSERVATION AREAS BECAUSE THEY HAVE SUFFERED LESS DISTURBANCE TO THE ORIGINAL ECOLOGY

LOCAL LAKES ARE PART OF THE WESTERN DISTRICT LAKES RAMSAR SITE - A GLOBALLY SIGNIFICANT WETLANDS AND BIRD HABITAT.
The numerous lakes of the Camperdown District are also related to volcanic activity. Some, such as Lake Bullen Merri and Lake Gnotuk, lie in volcanic craters or maars and are fed largely by underground water. The large lakes such as Lake Colongulac and Lake Corangamlte occupy depressions which are partly a result of overlapping lava flows that have blocked or diverted streams. These depressions are now internal drainage basins with little river inflow or no outlet.

Evaporation has concentrated salts in the lakes and some are now much saltier than sea water. The size and water quality of these lakes varies in response to long-term climatic changes and there is clear evidence that Lake Corangamite, Victoria's largest natural lake, was once much larger than it is today.

To the south east of Mount Leura are the major volcanic features of Lake Purrumbete and Mount Porndon. Lake Purrumbete is a freshwater lakes 45 metres deep in an almost circular maar of 2.5 km diameter, surrounded by a tuff ring. It is well known for its great fishing.

Further east is Mount Porndon, a complex volcano of several scoria cones and numerous lava flows which formed the local 'stony rises' and lava tube caves. The age of Mount Porndon is about 60,000 years. The hills in the distance to the south are the Otway Ranges which are made of sandstone rock about 125 million years old. They are much older than the volcanic features detailed above.

Access for Dogs:

Dogs permitted on leash.

Location

Mount Leura Road, Camperdown 3260 View Map