Mount Schank is an inactive maar volcano in the south-east of South Australia, near Mount Gambier. It was named by James Grant in 1800 after Admiral John Schank, designer of Grant's ship, the HMS Lady Nelson.
Mount Schank was created by the East Australia hotspot in the Holocene, 5,000 years ago, at the same time as Mount Gambier. It is a very basic ash cone perhaps a hundred metres high, and the base of the crater does not extend below the water table, so there is no crater lake as with those at Mount Gambier. There are two small subsidiary craters adjacent to the main cone and some lava flows resulting from the eruption. The northern crater is circular and 300 m in diameter, the older southern crater is 200 m in diameter and partially overlapped by the larger crater. Lava nearby shows quench features, typical of rapid cooling brought about by contact with seawater. This suggests that the area was covered by the sea when the eruption occurred; unsurprising, as today the volcano is around 15 km north of the shore. Mount Schank is part of the Newer Volcanics Province, which is the youngest volcanic center in Australia
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