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View of Kiob's ice-capped cone from the Rongai 2 camp
View of Kiob's ice-capped cone from the Rongai 2 camp
Trekkers up on the crater rim of Kibo
Trekkers up on the crater rim of Kibo

Kilimanjaro trekking



Kilimanjaro volcano

stratovolcano 5895 m (19,340 ft)
Tanzania, Africa and the Red Sea, -3.07°S / 37.36°E
Current status: dormant (1 out of 5)
Typical eruption style:

Explosive.


Kilimanjaro volcano eruptions: None in historic time (but probably active during the past 10,000 years)
Massive Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, consists of three large stratovolcanoes constructed along a NW-SE trend.

Background:

Massive Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, consists of three large stratovolcanoes constructed along a NW-SE trend. The ice-capped, 5895-m-high summit towers 5200 m above the surrounding plains. The older cone of Shira forms the broad WNW shoulder of Kilimanjaro, and the extensively dissected Mawenzi forms a prominent, sharp-topped peak on the ESE flank. Numerous satellitic cones occupy a rift zone to the NW and SE of Kibo, the central stratovolcano. A 2.4 x 3.6 km caldera gives the summit of Kibo an elongated, broad profile. Most of Kilimanjaro was constructed during the Pleistocene, but a group of youthful-looking nested summit craters are of apparent Holocene age.

Source: Smithsonian GVP

The crater of Kilimanjaro with its famous concentric structure of nested calderas (photo courtesy: P. Nicholson)
The crater of Kilimanjaro with its famous concentric structure of nested calderas (photo courtesy: P. Nicholson)
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