Mount Franklin (Victoria)
| Mount Franklin | |
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View from Highway
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| Highest point | |
| Elevation | 648 metres (2,126 ft) |
| Prominence | 270 m (890 ft) |
| Coordinates | 37°15′54″S 144°09′02″E / 37.26509°S 144.15043°ECoordinates: 37°15′54″S 144°09′02″E / 37.26509°S 144.15043°E |
| Geography | |
Mount Franklin is an extinct volcano about 10 km north of Daylesford and 4.6 km south east of Franklinford in Victoria, Australia. A road spirals round the outside slopes covered with pine trees, into a flat 50 acre caldera, now used as a camping ground, and onto the rim which hosts a fire lookout, parking area and picnic ground.
Being a prominent local landmark, it gives its name to the Mount Franklin locality within the Shire of Daylesford and Glenlyon. The mountain is included within the boundaries of the Mount Franklin Reserve managed by Parks Victoria.
The mountain was created by a volcanic eruption about 470,000 years ago. It is fine example of a breached scoria cone. The breach in the south eastern rim (through which the road now enters) is thought to have been caused by lava flow breaking through the rim. The caldera is one of the deepest in the central highlands area. Earlier flows extend to the north and west. The coarse ejecta exposed around the summit includes red and green olivine and megacrysts of high-temperature (some of the largest known Victorian examples) and orthoclase (to 7 cm long) and augite (over 9 cm long). Lumps of Ordovician sedimentary and granitic bedrock also occur in the ejecta and small basalt blocks contain cores of crazed quartz. On the western slope is the parasitic scoria mound known as "Lady Franklin".
The volcanic eruptions may have been witnessed by members of the Dja Dja Wurrung native Aboriginal tribe who called this country the ‘smoking grounds’. The clan that occupied the country around Mount Franklin were the Gunangara Gundidj who may have called it "Lalgambook". Mount Franklin and the surrounding area appears to have been a place of considerable religious significance to Aboriginal people. Both ethnographical and archaeological evidence indicates that frequent large ceremonial gatherings took place in the area. Lava from Mount Franklin and other volcanoes in the area filled valleys and buried the gold bearing streams that became the renowned ‘deep leads’ of the gold mining era.
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Wikipedia