Tuesday 15 May 2007

Mt Wellington - 15 May 2007

Nice walk on the mountain today, starting at Ferntree. Cool breeze on top, not like yesterday at Hartz. Found the lowest icehouse, 45 metres before the point where the previous start of the Icehouse Track joins the current incarnation. I'll show it approximately on the icehouse map.
Dolerite boulder, showing spherical weathering and red/blue differentiation of boulder surface (no explanation yet - ice fracturing?), Mt Wellington, Tasmania - 15 May 2007
This one looks like it's about to eat something.
Dolerite boulder, showing spherical weathering and red/blue differentiation of boulder surface (no explanation yet - ice fracturing?), Mt Wellington, Tasmania - 15 May 2007The dolerite boulders on the summit are fascinating. I'm not entirely sure why some areas of the rock weather to the orange colour, and other surfaces remain the "bluestone" colour. I'll have to read David Leaman's book about dolerite, The Rock Which Makes Tasmania.
Former cosmic-ray observatory, Mt Wellington, Tasmania.This structure just above The Springs is a bit of an enigma for many people. It used to be the University's Cosmic Ray Observatory. However it seems that the 'observy' bits went to Antarctica in 2002. This quote from the only Google cache webpage that seems to explain its demise:

"Mt Wellington is an approximately 1270 m mountain located immediately west of, and overlooking, the city of Hobart. An IGY type neutron monitor was installed on it in July 1956 at an altitude of 725 m. The detector building was located behind a resort hotel known as "The Springs", at the highest point on the mountain at which electric power was then available. The hotel and monitor were both destroyed in a major bush-fire on 7 February 1967. The weekly visit to recover data had been due that day but was not possible because of the fire conditions. Consequently the last available data are for 31 January.

The 6-NM-64 replacement station was commissioned in June 1970 on the same site, funding problems having caused the lengthy delay. As part of the rationalisation process it was closed early on 12 December 2001, rather than the originally announced 'some time in 2002'. The components were then despatched to Mawson as part of the enlargement of that monitor."


This page has some more information about the work.

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