Spectacular Glass House Mountains, Australia

Yesterday my wife and I visited the Mary Cairncross Reserve in the Backall Range near Maleny and took this photo. I never tire of the view. It was slightly hazy but the outlook was spectacular as usual, with the clouds adding depth and intrigue. Imagine what the sky was like when the eruptions were in full swing.

The tallest plug on the right (to the west) is Mt Beerwah at 556 metres. To the left (east) is the truncated column of Mt Coonowrin, also known as Crookneck, rising 375 metres above sea level. In between are another two plugs, more rounded and not as tall. These are called The Tunbubudla, or the Twins.

Altogether some fifteen volcanic plugs erupted into the area around this time. It happened during the catastrophic global Flood, some 4,500 years ago.¹ When they erupted the land surface was hundreds of metres higher, comprising thick sandstone strata. This sandstone was deposited toward the middle of the Flood, as the floodwaters were rising and around the time they were nearing their peak. The volcanoes erupted as the floodwaters that covered Australia began to recede into the oceans, flowing from west to east (right to left) in this locality. The surrounding sandstone was eroded away leaving the plugs.

Note

1. Tourist brochures quote ages of 25 and 30 million years, but note that geologists have not actually measured the age of these plugs. They measured various isotopes in rock samples, and based on assumptions about what they imagined happened to those isotopes in the past, they calculated some numbers that are now quoted. The samples that are selected, the assumptions that are made and the numbers quoted are chosen to harmonise with the accepted ages of local geology within the uniformitarian philosophy. This is a view of history that ignores (without discussion or evidence) the reality of the biblical Flood.