The Berserker Range is a mountainous region located on the eastern and northeastern boundary of the city of Rockhampton

Rockhampton, Queensland

Rockhampton is a city and local government area in Queensland, Australia. The city lies on the Fitzroy River, approximately from the river mouth, and some north of the state capital, Brisbane....

 in Central Queensland

Central Queensland

Central Queensland is an ambiguous geographical division of Queensland that centres on the eastern coast, around the Tropic of Capricorn. Its major regional centre is Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast and the area extends west to the Central Highlands at Emerald, north to the Mackay Regional...

, Australia. Within it lies Mount Archer National Park

Mount Archer National Park

Mount Archer is a national park in Queensland, Australia, 522 km northwest of Brisbane. It makes up the backdrop to the city of Rockhampton which marks the start of Tropical Queensland....

. It has been designated the Berserker Range Environmental Protection Area by the Rockhampton Regional Council

Rockhampton Regional Council

The Rockhampton Region is a Local Government Area located in Central Queensland, Queensland, Australia. Established in 2008, it was preceded by four previous local government areas extending to almost the beginning of local government in Queensland....

. The southernmost part of the range reaches the Fitzroy River

Fitzroy River (Queensland)

The Fitzroy River lies in Queensland, Australia. Its catchment covers an area of 142,665 square kilometres, making it the largest river catchment flowing to the eastern coast of Australia. The river is formed by the joining of the Mackenzie and Dawson rivers at Duaringa. The catchment stretches...

 at Broadmount, east of Rockhampton.

Geology

The range is composed of a diverse group of mostly igneous rock

Igneous rock

Igneous rock is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic rock. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava...

s dating from the Devonian

Devonian

The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic Era spanning from the end of the Silurian Period, about 416.0 ± 2.8 Mya , to the beginning of the Carboniferous Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya...

 to Early Triassic

Early Triassic

The Early Triassic is the first of three epochs of the Triassic period of the geologic timescale. It spans the time between 251 ± 0.4 Ma and 245 ± 1.5 Ma . Rocks from this epoch are collectively known as the Lower Triassic, which is a unit in chronostratigraphy...

 Periods. It has its origins in the early Permian

Permian

The PermianThe term "Permian" was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil; Murchison asserted in 1841 that he named his "Permian...

 period around 275 million years ago, when the original segment of continental crust

Continental crust

The continental crust is the layer of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks which form the continents and the areas of shallow seabed close to their shores, known as continental shelves. This layer is sometimes called sial due to more felsic, or granitic, bulk composition, which lies in...

 stretched

Extensional tectonics

Extensional tectonics is concerned with the structures formed, and the tectonic processes associated with, the stretching of the crust or lithosphere.-Deformation styles:...

 and subsequently sagged, leading to the development of two faults and subsequent volcanic activity. Much of the rocky outcrops and peaks of elevated areas are composed of masses of rhyolite

Rhyolite

This page is about a volcanic rock. For the ghost town see Rhyolite, Nevada, and for the satellite system, see Rhyolite/Aquacade.Rhyolite is an igneous, volcanic rock, of felsic composition . It may have any texture from glassy to aphanitic to porphyritic...

 and dacite

Dacite

Dacite is an igneous, volcanic rock. It has an aphanitic to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. The relative proportions of feldspars and quartz in dacite, and in many other volcanic rocks, are illustrated in the QAPF diagram...

 and known as Elliott Rhyolite. These masses then erode, with the deposits forming a dark grey material known as Sleipner Member. Not all the elevated areas are rhyolite; Mount Dick and Mount MacDonald, are mainly composed of breccia

Breccia

Breccia is a rock composed of broken fragments of minerals or rock cemented together by a fine-grained matrix, that can be either similar to or different from the composition of the fragments....

.

History

Historically, the region was home to the Raki-warra clan of the local Darumbal indigenous people. It received its English name from the Archer brothers

The Archer brothers

The Archer brothers were among the earliest settlers in Queensland. They were explorers and pastoralists. Seven sons of William Archer, a Scottish timber merchant, they spent varying amounts of time in the colony of New South Wales, mainly in parts of what later became Queensland. A substantial...

in 1853. A small amount of gold mining took place in the 19th century, and grazing leases were issued in 1900. The area was declared a timber reserve in 1940 and logged, with ironbark, white mahogany and lemon-scented gum being the main trees harvested. Grazing ended in 1974 with the conclusion of the last lease, and logging ceased in 1985.