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Mt Franklin

371600S 1440900E; 7723-3-1 (Daylesford) 471720. 9 km N of Daylesford. Daylesford-Castlemaine Road,

Image: Eruption Point
Mt Franklin breached crater

Daylesford and Glenlyon.

Public land. Road access to crater, upper area pine plantation, lower slopes native woodland. Surrounded by private land. Exposures in road cuttings.

Type 5:

Scoria cone with breached crater.

Mount Franklin is a prominent, conical scoria cone with deep crater open via a narrow breach in the rim on the southeastern side. The breached rim is probably a result of a late-stage lava flow breaking through the lower part of the cone. 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 an 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 (Unnamed CN5).

635 m; 185 m.

State:

This is a large and very obvious example of a breached scoria cone. The crater is one of the deepest in the Central Highlands area. It is a major megacryst site with some of the largest known Victorian examples of megacrysts of augite and an orthoclase. The small parasitic mound of Lady Franklin on the western flanks adds to the geological interest of the site.

Class3:

The extensive planting of pines on the upper slopes and in the crater partly obscure the geomorphology of the volcano. It would be preferable that on harvesting, these be replaced with indigenous species.

References:

Edwards, A.B. (1938). The Tertiary volcanic rocks of central Victoria.
Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 94, pp. 243-230.
Hills, 1940; Coulson 1954; Ollier 1967a; Beasley 1970.


Map: Eruption Point Mount Franklin 7723-3-1 (DAYLESFORD)
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