Keith Corbett

Keith Corbett is a Tasmanian-born geologist who has spent most of his life working in the state’s mountains. This has included a PhD study of the Denison Range in the South-West, and a masters study of the Mt Lyell Mine area. His pleasures since retiring include showing people interesting geological places, and working with others to develop walking tracks around Queenstown.

TASMANIAN VOICES

Bush blocks – English style and Tasmanian style

01 Jul 2021

Photographs by Keith Corbett and Jackie Fortey Richard Fortey is one of my favourite authors. An eminent British geologist and television presenter, he has appeared with David Attenborough, and written a number of best-selling books on geology. But...

TASMANIAN VOICES

Our great unconformity

24 Mar 2021

The geological records of most countries contain unconformities – sections where a significant amount of rock is missing, usually due to erosion, and there is a discordant contact between the older and younger rock units. Some classic examples include the “Great Unconformity” in the Grand Canyon of Colorado, US, where Cambrian sandstone overlies deformed Precambrian rocks with a missing time gap of about 500 million years. Another is the Siccar Point unconformity of James Hutton (the Scottish “father of modern geology”, 1726-1797) between Devonian old red sandstone and Silurian sandstone and shale, with 80 million years missing, on the east coast of Scotland.

TASMANIAN VOICES

Queenstown confluence

30 Dec 2020

Queenstown is my favourite town. I first went there in about 1960, as a geology student, to look at some of the geology and mines. My future wife, Sib, was also a student on that trip, and was refused permission to go underground at Mt Lyell Mine – having women underground was considered bad luck! Thankfully, that’s changed, and female geologists, as well as engineers, and even truck drivers, are common in mines these days.