Cameroon Mountain
| Cameroon Mountain | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
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| height | 4095 m | |
| location | Cameroon , West (/ Central ) Africa | |
| Dominance | 2337 km → Mikeno | |
| Notch height | 3956 m | |
| Coordinates | 4 ° 13 '8 " N , 9 ° 10' 24" E | |
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| Type | Stratovolcano | |
| rock | Basalt , trachy basalt | |
| Last eruption | 2000 | |
| First ascent | 1861 by Richard Francis Burton and Gustav Mann | |
| particularities | Highest mountain in West Africa | |
The Cameroon Mountain (also Fako , formerly Albert spitze ; English Mount Cameroon , French Mont Cameroun ) is an active volcano in the west of Cameroon . It is 4095 m high and thus the highest mountain in West Africa . It is located in the South-West region , in the English-speaking part of the country, in the immediate vicinity of the coast exactly at the inflection of the Gulf of Guinea and thus in the area of the approximate transition between West and Central Africa .
The volcanic massif was created by the so-called Cameroon Line , a hot spot that also produced the islands of São Tomé , Príncipe , Bioko and Annobón as well as (on the mainland) the rest of the mountainous region in western Cameroon with the crater lakes there . The older and now extinct volcanic cone of the Etinde (also called Little Cameroon Mountain ) reaches a height of 1715 m . The Cameroon Mountain is probably the oldest still active volcano in the world.
The historically documented eruptions of the Fako occurred in 1650, 1807, 1825, 1838, 1852, 1865, 1866, 1871, 1909, 1922, 1925, 1954, 1959, 1982, 1999 and 2000. The eruptions ran from south-south-west to north-north-east accordingly the longitudinal axis of the volcanic massif. Volcanic activity progressed from west to east over time.
At the foot of the mountain range there are favorable conditions for the construction of plantations (especially due to the soils that are extraordinarily fertile for tropical conditions due to volcanism ) , and so the lowland rainforests have almost all been replaced by oil palms and rubber trees. The slopes of the Fako are still largely covered with mountain rainforest , interrupted by slash and burn for the cultivation of bananas, cocoyam and ndole ( Vernonia amygdalina ). At around 2200 m, the forest is abruptly replaced by savannah , which finally turns into alpine mats. The southwest slopes of the massif between Limbe and Idenau are among the rainiest places on earth , with over 11,000 mm of annual precipitation . Towards the summit there are grasses and, later, small rock peaks with ash fields and crumbled gray-green lava . Lichen is the only vegetation at the top ; occasionally there is a blanket of snow at this altitude .
It is very likely that the Carthaginian navigator Hanno was born around 470 BC. Witness an eruption of the Fako; In his travelogue a fire-breathing mountain appears, which illuminated the night sky and generated streams of fire down into the sea. Hanno called him, like the Greeks before, “Theon Ochema” (German “chariot of the gods”), which the Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder described as the largest known volcano in the middle of the southern border of Africa.
The first known ascent of the Fako by a European was achieved in 1861 by the British Sir Richard Francis Burton and the German botanist Gustav Mann . After Gustav Mann is still the Mann-Spring , which is about 2400 m above sea level. M. highest source of the mountain, named. Mary Kingsley was the first woman to reach the summit of Fako in 1895. Today, 1000 to 2000 tourists climb the summit with moderate effort every year; there is an ecotourism provider supported by the German GIZ .
The provincial capital Buea is located on the plateau at an altitude of about 1000 m .
additional
- The mountain is mentioned in the text of the Cameroonian national anthem and is called Buea-Berg there.
- The asteroid (69228) Kamerunberg was named after the volcano.
- On May 3, 1963, a Douglas DC-6B of Air Afrique (F-BIAO) was flown on the way from Douala Airport ( Cameroon ) to Lagos ( Nigeria ) 60 kilometers north-northwest of Douala in the Cameroon Mountain. The machine was still climbing when it collided with the volcano at a height of almost 2000 meters. All 55 occupants were killed in this CFIT, controlled flight into terrain .
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Web links
- Kamerunberg in the Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian Institution (English)
- Kamerunberg on Peakbagger.com (English)
- J.-PF Tsafack et al .: The Mount Cameroon stratovolcano (Cameroon volcanic line, Central Africa): Petrology, geochemistry, isotope and age data. In: Geochemistry, mineralogy and petrology, Sofia, 2009, 47, pp. 65–78 (PDF file, English; 5.4 MB)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Mount Cameroon. (No longer available online.) Mount Cameroon Ecotourism Organization, archived from the original on April 30, 2010 ; accessed on February 10, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Kamerunberg in the Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian Institution (English)
- ↑ Mount Cameroon - On the brink of eruption. Retrieved August 17, 2013 .
- ↑ Description of the tour "Climb The Fako". (No longer available online.) Pro climate International, archived from the original on May 15, 2014 ; accessed on February 10, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Accident report DC-6B F-BIAO , Aviation Safety Network (English), accessed on September 19, 2019.
