Mount Fentale

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Fentale
Elevation 2,007 metres (6,585 feet)
Location Oromia Region, Ethiopia
Coordinates 8.975° N 39.93° E
Type Stratovolcano
Last eruption 1820 (?)

Fentale is a volcano located in the Oromia Region, Ethiopia. It is the highest point of Fentale woreda.

Philip Briggs describes Mount Fentale being crowned by a 350 meter deep crater. Briggs concludes that this volcano "is responsible for the bleak hundred-year-old lava flows that cross the road immediately west of Metehara, and its steam vents can sometimes be seen displaying from the surrounding plains at night."[1]

The date of these eruptions is fixed by the investigations of the early 19th century explorer William Cornwallis Harris, whom David Buxton states first encountered this volcano and its lava beds in 1842. By questioning the natives, Harris concluded that the most recent eruptions had taken place 30 years before his arrival.[2]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Philip Briggs, Ethiopia: The Bradt Travel Guide, 3rd edition (Chalfont St Peters: Bradt, 2002), p. 335
  2. ^ David Buxton, Travels in Ethiopia, second edition (London: Benn, 1957), p. 131

[edit] References