Namarunu is a shield volcano located in the Great Rift Valley, Kenya.

Location

Namarunu is located in the Suguta Valley, a section of the Kenyan Rift Valley just south of Lake Turkana. It extends from the western side of the rift past the center. The mountain forms a broad shield. The large basal part is about deep, made up of outward-dipping trachytic lavas, breccias and tuffs. A few thousand years ago the Suguta was filled by a major lake, but now it is extremely dry and hot, with only the small

Lake Logipi Lake Logipi is a saline, alkaline lake that lies at the northern end of the arid Suguta Valley in the northern Kenya Rift. It is separated from Lake Turkana by the Barrier Volcano, Barrier volcanic complex, a group of young volcanoes that last eru ...

at the northern end. Some of the recent cones on the floor of the rift valley and on the eastern side of the rift below the Tirr Tirr Plateau contain hot springs.

Evolution

Namarunu was mainly formed during the upper

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

. It is a trachytic shield volcano topped by more recent parasitic cones and lava flows. The basal trachyte dates to roughly 6.8 million years ago, while the uppermost basalts date to around 500,000 years ago. Large amounts of basalt were deposited in the Rift valley on the north, east and south of the volcano through effusion and explosions during the early Holocene. A breached scoria cone that forms the summit of the mountain also erupted fluid olivine basalts, with some eruptions later than the period around 3,000 years ago when Lake Suguta dried out. Eruptions may have occurred around the same time as historical eruptions of the

Barrier Volcano The Barrier is an active shield volcano located in the north of Kenya. It is last known to have erupted in 1921. Description The Barrier was given its name because it forms a barrier about long across the Kenyan Rift Valley. It has a width of ...

to the north.

References

Sources

* * {{Great Rift Valley, Kenya Mountains of Kenya Volcanoes of Kenya Polygenetic shield volcanoes Pliocene shield volcanoes Pleistocene shield volcanoes Holocene shield volcanoes

Location

Evolution

See also

References

Sources