Created from Chaos | In Conversation with Peter Manchester

Name: Created from Chaos | In Conversation with Peter Manchester
Start: 2026-02-25T17:30:00+11:00
End: 2026-02-25T17:30:00+11:00
Location: Fullers Bookshop

About

Tasmania's landscape, its rocks and tectonic structures, is one of the most understood yet less celebrated aspects of the state by its population. It is so unique geologically that much of Tasmania's geology is closer to that found in the Antarctic region, or the USA's Arizona Grand Canyon than it is to mainland Australia.

This updated version of "Created from Chaos" is the definitive book that interprets 104 observable geological and "geoheritage" localities using understandable geological langauge. Features as old as the 1300 million year old rocks on King Island to the most recent coastal erosional effects at Ocean beach on the West Coast. Using understandable explanations and definitions, photographic images of the "chaos sites", intrusions into the rocks, contorted folding and stretching, the author outlines how to acknowledge and understand these special places that made this island the Tasmania we see today.

"Created from Chaos" divides Tasmania into geographical "chaos regions", each containing a number of "chaos sites". These sites have been selected for their easy access and viewing from roads or short walking tracks. "Created from Chaos" will be invaluable to educators, researchers, students, fossickers and the interested and enquiring person, and could provide a first point of reference to scientists investigating Tasmania's geology and geological history.

Peter Manchester was born and educated in Launceston, Tasmania. After a short cadetship with the Mines Department, he attended the University of Tasmania, majoring in geology, geochemistry and education. After a short period in the mining industry, and after compulsory national service overseas, he served 49 years lecturing and teaching Tasmanian geology, photography, multimedia and geotourism to adults and children of all abilities. His wide knowledge of layperson Tasmanian geology has allowed him to conduct more than 360 field excursions since the 1970s, and he has frequently consulted on earth science collections. His recent book, "Peter Manchester's Guide to Tasmanian Fossils" (2024) is the first book on this subject and is highly coveted.

Peter will be in conversation with Professor Ross Large. Professor Large is a Distinguished Professor of Geology at the University of Tasmania and the recent past Director of CODES, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits. Ross gained his PhD from the University of New England in 1973 and undertook a CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto in 1974. For 10 years Ross worked in mineral exploration in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Tasmania. In 1984 he joined the University of Tasmania and, five years later, established CODES as a National Key Centre jointly funded by the Australian Research Council, University of Tasmania, the Mining Industry and the State Government. Under his leadership, CODES has grown to become recognised as one of the top ore deposit research centres in the world.

Join Peter and Ross at the Afterword Cafe.