Country History
Volcanoes of Wadawurrung Country and Victoria: Fire, Stone, Lava Flow and Story
The volcanic landscapes of Victoria tell a story written in fire and stone — a story that spans deep geological time and continues in Indigenous oral traditions. Across Wadawurrung Country, from the You Yangs and Anakie Hills to Mount Buninyong and Mount Elephant, volcanoes once reshaped the land through eruptions that poured molten rock across vast plains. For the Wadawurrung and neighbouring Nations, these fiery events were not only natural phenomena but powerful acts of creation, linked to ancestral beings and the making of Country.
The Victorian Volcanic Plain, stretching from Melbourne to the South Australian border, is one of the world’s largest and most recently active volcanic regions. It contains more than 400 volcanoes, formed between about 4.5 million and 5,000 years ago — meaning eruptions occurred within the memory and oral histories of First Peoples.
The Science of Lava and Eruption
Volcanoes form when molten rock (magma) from beneath the Earth’s crust rises through weaknesses and erupts onto the surface. Once exposed to air, the magma cools and becomes lava.
How Lava Forms and Moves
Beneath the Earth’s crust, heat and pressure melt mantle rocks into magma.
When pressure builds, magma rises through cracks and vents, escaping as lava.
The type of lava — basaltic, andesitic, or rhyolitic — depends on its chemical composition and temperature.
In Victoria, the lava was basaltic, meaning it was hot (over 1,000°C), fluid, and dark in colour. As it flowed, it spread across wide areas before cooling into basalt rock — the hard, dark stone that now forms much of western Victoria’s plains and hills.
Rocks and Stones Formed by Lava
Basalt: Dense, fine-grained rock formed by rapid cooling of lava.
Scoria: Porous rock created when gas bubbles are trapped in cooling lava, visible around craters such as Mount Franklin and Red Rock.
Tuff: Consolidated volcanic ash, often layered around eruption sites.
These volcanic rocks became part of the material culture of Indigenous peoples — used for tools, grinding stones, and even construction at sites like Budj Bim, where Gunditjmara people built eel traps using basalt boulders formed by ancient lava flows.
Volcanoes on Wadawurrung Country and in Victoria
The Wadawurrung landscape bears many volcanic landmarks. Each holds geological and cultural importance:
Mount Buninyong (Buninyong/Yerong Creek Area)
An extinct scoria cone volcano near Ballarat, active around 10,000 years ago.
Its fertile volcanic soils supported abundant plant life and food sources for the Wadawurrung.
Oral histories speak of “fire mountains” that once burned and shaped the land, connecting to ancestral beings of fire and earth.
Mount Elephant and Mount Napier (Tappoc and Tapoc)
Cone-shaped volcanoes that erupted between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago.
Mount Napier’s lava flowed into valleys to form the Tyrendarra lava flow, part of the Budj Bim landscape.
Wadawurrung and Gunditjmara traditions link these fiery events with creation and the renewal of land.
The You Yangs and Anakie Hills
Though much older (formed 35 million years ago), these granitic and volcanic formations mark the eastern edge of Wadawurrung Country.
They are places of story and lookout, formed through slow volcanic intrusion and erosion rather than explosive eruption.
Lava Plains and Waterways
As lava spread across western Victoria, it blocked rivers and created wetlands and lakes. Over time, these became rich ecosystems supporting eels, waterbirds, and plants — foundational to Indigenous food systems.
Indigenous Knowledge and Story
In Wadawurrung and Gunditjmara cultures, volcanoes are linked with ancestral beings and elemental forces. The “fire under the ground” is understood as living spirit — a reminder of the balance between destruction and renewal.
At Budj Bim, Gunditjmara stories describe how the ancestral being Budj Bim transformed the landscape through fire and lava to create water channels for eels. Science now confirms that these lava flows formed about 30,000 years ago — aligning with oral accounts of volcanic activity preserved through story.
Wadawurrung stories also speak of mountains as beings that breathe or sleep, reflecting both geological and spiritual observation — recognising that fire, water, and stone are all part of Country’s life cycle.
Volcanoes Across Australia
Volcanic activity shaped many Indigenous homelands:
Newer Volcanics Province (Victoria & South Australia): Eruptions at Mount Gambier (~5,000 years ago) are believed to have been witnessed by local Bunganditj people — among the world’s oldest living accounts of volcanic eruption.
Northern Queensland: The Atherton Tablelands’ Lake Eacham and Lake Barrine formed from explosive eruptions around 10,000 years ago, with Aboriginal stories describing fiery destruction and rising ash.
Western Australia: The Kimberley and Pilbara regions contain some of the oldest volcanic rocks on Earth, over 3 billion years old, linking deep geological time with ancient Dreaming.
Global Analogies: Fire and Story Worldwide
Indigenous peoples worldwide hold stories that mirror those of Victoria’s lava Country:
Māori (Aotearoa/New Zealand): The volcanoes of the North Island are seen as ancestors — Taranaki, Tongariro, and Ruapehu — whose eruptions mark acts of love, anger, and renewal.
Hawaiian Peoples: The goddess Pele is said to create land through lava, embodying the spirit of fire and transformation.
Native American Nations (Pacific Northwest): Stories of Mount St Helens and Mount Mazama describe fiery mountains whose eruptions changed the world.
Icelandic and Sami Traditions: Volcanoes are interpreted as the breath of the Earth, reflecting respect for natural power.
These parallels highlight a shared human understanding: volcanoes are not just geological forces but expressions of the living Earth.
Science and Time: Australia’s Volcanic Eras
Over millions of years, Australia’s land has been shaped by a sequence of volcanic eras that reveal both geological transformation and cultural continuity. During the Palaeozoic Era (around 541–252 million years ago), the foundations of Victoria were formed as ancient oceanic plates collided and sank beneath the continent. These immense subduction processes generated heat and pressure that forged Victoria’s deep metamorphic crust — the ancient rock base upon which all later landscapes would evolve.
In the Mesozoic Era (252–66 million years ago), as the great supercontinent Gondwana began to fracture and drift apart, eastern Australia experienced widespread volcanic activity. Rising magma filled fractures in the Earth’s crust, forming long chains of volcanoes that extended through Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria. This was the beginning of a geological rhythm that linked Australia’s eastern spine to the forces of plate motion and continental renewal.
By the Cenozoic Era (from about 66 million years ago to the present), volcanic activity became focused in southern and eastern regions. The most significant of these events shaped the Victorian Volcanic Plain — a vast basaltic plateau stretching from Melbourne to the South Australian border. Here, more than 400 volcanic eruption points were active between roughly 4.5 million and 5,000 years ago. Each eruption poured out rivers of molten basalt that cooled into fertile black soils, creating one of the largest volcanic plains on Earth.
During the Holocene period (the last 10,000 years), eruptions continued at places such as Mount Napier, Mount Eccles/Budj Bim, and Mount Gambier. These were not ancient, forgotten events — they were witnessed by Indigenous communities whose oral traditions describe fire emerging from the ground, earth shaking, and lakes forming from molten rock. The most recent eruption on mainland Australia, at Mount Gambier, occurred only about 5,000 years ago — a geological moment so recent that its memory survives in story.
For the Wadawurrung and neighbouring Gunditjmara peoples, these volcanic events are not merely physical phenomena but part of a living cosmology. The creation stories of Budj Bim describe an ancestral being whose fiery emergence from the earth brought both life and transformation. Fire and lava are understood as energies of renewal — forces that shaped rivers, hills, and food systems. The basalt plains born from ancient eruptions became Country: rich in waterholes, eels, and grasslands, sustaining generations of communities.
In this way, science and story converge. The volcanic eras that geology measures in millions of years are mirrored in Indigenous knowledge as acts of creation and change — reminders that the land beneath Victoria is alive, ancient, and still carrying the memory of fire.
Lava, Heat, and Transformation
When lava cools, it records the Earth’s memory:
Cooling Rate: Fast cooling forms fine-grained basalt; slower cooling forms crystalline rock.
Magnetic Record: As it solidifies, lava preserves the direction of the Earth’s magnetic field — a natural geological clock.
Soil Formation: Over thousands of years, weathered lava forms fertile red and black soils — the foundation for life and agriculture.
For Indigenous people, this transformation from fire to fertile soil symbolises renewal — a cycle of creation mirrored in both science and story.
Colonisation and the Changing Landscape
European settlement altered volcanic landscapes through farming, quarrying, and mining of basalt for building materials. Sacred volcanic sites like Lal Lal Falls, Mount Elephant, and Budj Bim were fenced or quarried. Yet, Indigenous communities continue to protect these places through joint management and heritage recognition.
Revival and Protection Today
Budj Bim (Gunditjmara Country) was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, recognising both geological and cultural significance.
Wadawurrung Traditional Owners Aboriginal Corporation manages volcanic landscapes near Geelong and Ballarat, integrating cultural knowledge with conservation.
Educational programs now teach both the science and spirituality of volcanic Country, showing how ancient knowledge aligns with modern earth science.
Conclusion
The volcanic plains of Wadawurrung Country are landscapes of power, memory, and renewal. From the eruptions that forged basalt plains to the stories that explain their spirit, these volcanoes connect earth science with cultural wisdom. In the eyes of both geology and Indigenous law, the land is alive — shaped by fire, cooled by time, and remembered through story.
Across Victoria, Australia, and the world, volcanoes remind us that the ground beneath us is never still — that creation is an ongoing act of nature and culture intertwined.
References
AIATSIS (2000). Settlement: A History of Australian Indigenous Housing and Culture. Canberra: AIATSIS.
Barwick, D. (1998). Rebellion at Coranderrk. Canberra: Aboriginal History Inc.
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clarke, I. D. (1990). Aboriginal Languages and Clans: An Historical Atlas of Western and Central Victoria, 1800–1900. Melbourne: Monash Publications.
Gammage, B. (2011). The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Joyce, E. B. & King, R. L. (1980). Volcanic Landforms and Lava Flows of Western Victoria. Geological Society of Australia.
McNiven, I. & Bell, D. (2010). Fishers and Farmers: Historicising Aboriginal Aquaculture and Agriculture in Victoria. Aboriginal History Journal, 34.
Pascoe, B. (2014). Dark Emu: Black Seeds – Agriculture or Accident? Broome: Magabala Books.
UNESCO (2019). Budj Bim Cultural Landscape World Heritage Listing. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Williams, M. A. J. (2009). Geomorphology of the Newer Volcanics Province, Victoria. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 56(3), pp. 387–403.
Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter 16/09/2025
MLA
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledge the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay our respects to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of communities.