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Marsabit Volcano | John Seach
Kenya
2.32 N, 37.97 E
summit elevation 1707 m
Shield volcano
Marsabit volcano is located in northern Kenya, east of Lake Turkana. It is a large shield volcano with 180 cinder cones and 22 maars. The volcano contains surface slopes of less than 6 degrees. Lava flows have thickness of 5-20 m.
The maars are up to 2.5 km in diameter, and some locally coalesce to form composite craters up to 3.0 km long. Volcanism is concentrated along two belts 15 km long, aligned NE and NW through the summit.
Marsabit is the only one of the four major shield volcanoes in northern Kenya which contains many maars. This is due to its location across the Chalbi Basin, which is the main groundwater sink in northern Kenya. The resulting mixing of groundwater and magma has created numerous maars.
Further reading
Kaeser, Benjamin, et al. "Pyroxenite xenoliths from Marsabit (Northern Kenya): evidence for different magmatic events in the lithospheric mantle and interaction between peridotite and pyroxenite." Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology 157.4 (2009): 453-472.
Key, R.M., Rop, B.P. and Rundle, C.C., 1987. The development of the late Cenozoic alkali basaltic Marsabit shield volcano, northern Kenya. Journal of African Earth Sciences (1983), 6(4), pp.475-491.
Marsabit Volcano Eruptions
No recent eruptions.