Cameroon Line

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Schematic overview of the Cameroon line and the geology of its surroundings

The Cameroon line ( Engl. : Cameroon line ) is a volcanic mountain range in Central Africa .

location

The mountain range extends on the mainland along the border between Cameroon and Nigeria and extends from the Bay of Bonny towards Lake Chad . The 4040 m high Cameroon Mountain and the Cameroon Grassland are striking features of the landscape . In the Gulf of Guinea , the Cameroon line continues in the form of the islands of São Tomé and Príncipe and the Bioko and Annobón (Pagalu) belonging to Equatorial Guinea . Further to the southwest, some deep sea mountains belong to the line.

activity

With the exception of the Cameroon Mountain, the volcanoes along the Cameroon Line are currently dormant. Striking volcanoes in this chain are the Bambouto massif , Manengouba , Oku and the Kupe . Some crater lakes are also known , including the Barombi Mbo , the Bermin Lake and the Nyos Lake . In the latter, a devastating limnic eruption occurred in 1986, killing over 1200 people in the vicinity of the lake.

geology

From a geological point of view, the Cameroon Line lies in the area of ​​the Central African Shear Zone , which extends from the Gulf of Guinea to Sudan and is connected to the Great Rift Valley . To the west of the Cameroon line is the Benue-Trog or Benue-Graben, another rift valley. There are essentially two theories about the origin of the line: The first is based on a relatively slow hotspot or a plume under the area that is currently said to be under the Oku massif. The other theory explains the formation with tectonic tensions during the movement of the African plate , whereby a structure similar to a triple point is said to have formed. Two of the three arms of this structure form the mid-Atlantic ridge , while the third arm should point away from the back towards the inland.

Web links

literature

  • Alfred Wegener : The emergence of the continents and the oceans , Europäische Hochschulverlag, Bremen 2011, ISBN 978-3-86741-639-9 , pp. 68–69
  • Franz D. Hutter: Landscape pictures from Cameroon in Geographische Zeitschrift , 10th year, Leipzig 1904