Class News

JS82 'Rocking our world': Excursion to the Tawonga Fault

On Friday our students in JS82 got out of the classroom for a while and ventured up onto the edge of the Tawonga Fault.  The Tawonga Fault is one of the biggest recently active fault lines in Australia and can easily be seen on google maps’ satellite view stretching in a ten kilometre straight line from Mountain Creek Picnic Ground to upper Simmonds Creek.

According to official sources (Geological Survey Victoria) in the past few million years this fault has caused the mountains to the south of Mount Beauty to be thrust upwards by about 700m.  Investigations are ongoing, but it is now believed our mountains are probably still moving upwards.  Students walked about a half kilometre along the fault line and then stopped to examine some of the rocks found.  They had recently studied the three main categories of rocks: sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous, and were able to identify some rock types.

The picture shows four of our students taking a closer look.

By Bob Flower