Perched on the edge of a major escarpment, the city of Toowoomba has a fascinating geological and landscape history. Its basalt terrain and lateritic red soils are well known, but it is not often recognised that these are within a separate lava field, with craters and lava pools, younger than the adjacent Main Range Volcano. Even younger, apparently overlying a laterite profile, are trachyte and rhyolite lavas to the northwest, whose origins and age relationships remain uncertain. Landscape development is equally fascinating, with streams draining to the northeast once flowing to the Burnett River, before they were captured by a tributary of the Bremer River which became the upper Brisbane River.

Edwin Willey and other authors who have spent much of their careers around Toowoomba describe this geology and underlying older rocks, together with the soils, underground water, useful materials and landslide problems of the district.  A major section describes excursions where you can see examples of the rocks and landscapes.