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Oldoinyo 2

1) Oldoinyo Lengai is an active volcano located in northern Tanzania that uniquely erupts natrocarbonatite lava, which solidifies into a white material as it reacts with moisture in the air. 2) The volcano was formed over 370,000 years through eruptions of tuffs, agglomerates, and lava flows that have changed the morphology of the summit crater over time through explosive eruptions and emission of ash and rock bombs. 3) Eruptions between 1983-1993 destroyed vegetation on the upper slopes and flattened the crater, and more recent eruptions in 2007 became explosive and may incorporate nephelic and phonolitic components in addition to natro

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79 views2 pages

Oldoinyo 2

1) Oldoinyo Lengai is an active volcano located in northern Tanzania that uniquely erupts natrocarbonatite lava, which solidifies into a white material as it reacts with moisture in the air. 2) The volcano was formed over 370,000 years through eruptions of tuffs, agglomerates, and lava flows that have changed the morphology of the summit crater over time through explosive eruptions and emission of ash and rock bombs. 3) Eruptions between 1983-1993 destroyed vegetation on the upper slopes and flattened the crater, and more recent eruptions in 2007 became explosive and may incorporate nephelic and phonolitic components in addition to natro

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buhlejoy
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Quartenary and Tectonic Setting:

The volcano was formed from the eruption of tuffs shown by Figure 3. (red, yellow and black), agglomerates and eruptions of Figure 3 : Crater indicating steep, rugged walls. Small lava. The yellow tuffs are made of nepheline and cones and lava flows were forming on its floor pyroxene are set in a fine grain of zeolite, limonite and carbonate and their existence has been related to the rocks at Olduvai Gorge which range in age from 0.15Ma to 0.4Ma. The grey and blacks tuffs are made of lithic tuffs - rich in nepheline; and crystal tuffs Oldoinyo Lengai is one of the worlds most peculiar which are rich in micas, nepheline and olivine crystals. volcanoes. Volcanoes usually spew red-hot lava but the lava at Oldoinyo Lengai is not as hot (about 5000C- The black tuffs are also related to the ash at Olduvai which is half the temperature of most basaltic lavas), Gorge which is 1250 years old. so the volcano erupts black lava (though the lava does Oldoinyo Lengai: glow red at night!). The magma is composed of The Volcano That Is Too Strange To Be Between July and December 1940, blocks and bombs nepheline, phonolite and natrocarbonatite with the were ejected from the volcano. True carbonatites being the dominant magma. Oldoinyo In 1968, the summit crater consisted of a larger Lengai is uncommon because it is the only known, northern sector centred on a deep pit crater, active and carbonatite-erupting volcano in the world! Process geomorphology: Ol Doinyo Lengai directly separated by a transverse ridge from the shallower Figure 1: Black Lava from an Eruption at Oldoinyo crates and degrades landforms through eruptions. Earth tremors caused by the movement of magma and ash filled southern depression as shown by Figure 3. Lengai rock bombings and crater formation are a few of the Figure 3: Southern Depression from the 1968 Eruption ways in which the volcano changes the landscape. Its structure can be likened to a stratovolcano with a diameter of 12km and a height of nearly 2400m. It has two craters at the summit of which only the northern crater is the one that is current active. Figure 2: Structure of the Northern Crater The volcano forms part of the Neogene volcanic province on Northern Tanzania and is located on the floor of the Kenyan Rift Valley. Oldoinyo Lengai is the 370 000 years old and is the youngest big volcano in the Rift Valley, therefore it has no geological history. The rocks at Oldoinyo Lengai have a high proportion of alkalis which are dominated by the sodium carbonate, From 1983 to 1993, Oldoinyo Lengai erupted natrocarbonatite. This is unique because only a few continuously. Massive amounts of ash destroyed the carbonatites have sodium in them. With this property, vegetation on the upper slopes of the volcano during the black lava at Oldoinyo Lengai turns white a few the 1993 eruption. The crater itself has shown hours after eruption. This is because if significant change over the decades. An increase in natrocarbonatites are exposed to moisture, the the number of cones and the general flattening of the sodium in them reacts with water and new minerals The eruptions have therefore caused the crater platform was noted. are formed. morphological structure of the northern crater to change dramatically over time. Eruptions have caused The formation of the carbonatite magmas has been steeper crater walls about 200m deep in the mid-20th After the 1993 eruptions, an Arachnoid-like structure was discovered at the summit of Oldoinyo Lengai. The subjected to debate. The first is that carbonatite century to become shallow platforms. structure resmbles arachnoids on Venus except that it comes out of the silicate melt by differentiation when Volcanic Activity and Contemporary is smaller in size. This structure is of particular an old, thick continent begins to crack apart and the Geomorphological Change: interest because extra-terresrtrial arachnoids are magma beneath the crust forms by partial melting of From January to June, 1917, a major explosive formed from uplift and then a spread of magma within carbonatite minerals. Other geologists believe that it eruption took place causing an ash deposition is not a primary magma, but the end product of a approximately 25-30miles away from the volcano. As a the crust. This is in correlation with a theory that has hydrothermal alteration of sodium-rich carbonatites. result, luxurious vegetation of the lower slopes of the been stated about the formation of Oldoinyo Lengai. Figure 4: Arachnoid-like feature on Oldoinyo Lengai's nearby mountains was destroyed. The flat lava Summit Mineralogy: platforms were replaced by a deep summit crater as

After 25 years of extrusive natrocarbonatite eruptions, the eruptive activity of Oldoinyo Lengai changed to episodic and explosive eruptions in Septeber 2007. This explosivity has been related to past eruptions in 1917, 1940 and 1968. It can therefore be expected that the behaviour, crater morphology and the magma composition may change eto incorporate nephilitic and phonolitic components.
References Alden, A. no date. Oldoinyo Lengai: World's Weirdest Volcano, accessed 10 May 2012, http://geology.about.com/cs/volcanoes/a/aa031499.htHYPERLINK "http://geology.about.com/cs/volcanoes/a/aa031499.htm.%20"m. Cecilia Nyamweru. no date. Oldoinyo Lengai: A Unique Volcano, weblog, accessed 10 May 2012, <<http://blogs.stlawu.edu/lengai/what-is-carbonatite/ >> & <<http://blogs.stlawu.edu/lengai/evolution/ >> Volatile Emissions from the Crater and Flank of Oldoinyo Langai Volcano, Tanzania, accessed 10 May 2012, <http://www.essc.psu.edu/~brantley/publications/Volatile %20emissions.pdf> Pinkerton,H & Pyle, D.M. 1994. Arachnoid-like Feature on Oldoinyo Lengai, an active carbonate volcano in Niorthern Tanzania.Lunar and Planetary Science, Vol. 25, 1994, p. 1087-1088

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