Ankaratra is a cinder cone
volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...
range located about southwest of
Antananarivo
Antananarivo ( French: ''Tananarive'', ), also known by its colonial shorthand form Tana, is the capital and largest city of Madagascar. The administrative area of the city, known as Antananarivo-Renivohitra ("Antananarivo-Mother Hill" or "An ...
, the capital city of
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
. It lies between the towns of Arivonimamo to the north, Ambatolampy to the east, Faratsiho to the west and Betafo to the south. It is located in the
Central Highlands. The highest peak in Ankaratra is ''
Mount Tsiafajavona'' ("never out of the fog"), at 2,644 metres (8,668 ft.) above
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
. Some trace of activity remains in the southernmost part of the range, creating hot springs in the area around
Antsirabe. The last eruption of Ankaratra took place in the very recent
Quaternary
The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). It follows the Neogene Period and spans from 2.58 million years ...
.
See also
*
List of volcanoes in Madagascar
This is a list of active and extinct volcanoes in Madagascar.
References
{{Global Volcanism Program
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; fre ...
References
Volcanoes of Madagascar
Mountain ranges of Madagascar
Antananarivo Province
Cinder cones
Active volcanoes
Madagascar ericoid thickets
{{Madagascar-geo-stub