Macquarie Island lies some 1,500 km SSE of Tasmania.
It is, in fact, a Dependency of Tasmania.
It is not really a volcano per se, but rather a piece
of the Macquarie Ridge bought to the surface at the junction between the
Indian Ocean and Pacific plates.
The island is 35 km long but only 6 km wide and rises 433m
above sea level.
The island was named by Captain Hasselbrough in 1806 (?) after
the then Govenor of New South Wales.
The southern part of the island consists of pillow and massive
basalts and pyroclastics whereas the north has layered ultramafic sequences.
Radiometric ages give the time of formation at 9.7 to 11.5
Ma.
The stamp on the cover below was issued in Australia on November
17th, 1954.
It was not issued on Macquarie Island until December 28th,
1954.
Australian Antarctic Territories did not issue their "own"
stamps till 1957.
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