Mount Elgon is an extinctshield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya,[5] north of Kisumu, east of Mbale and west of Kitale. The mountain's highest point, named "Wagagai", is located entirely within Uganda.[1][6] Although there is no verifiable evidence of its earliest volcanic activity, geologists estimate that Mount Elgon is at least 24 million years old, making it the oldest known extinct volcano in East Africa.[7] The mountain's name originates from its Maasai name, “Ol Doinyo Ilgoon” (Breast Mountain).[8]
Mount Elgon is a massive solitary volcanic mountain on the border of eastern Uganda and western Kenya. Its vast form, 80 kilometres (50mi) in diameter, rises 3,070 metres (10,070ft) above the surrounding plains. Its cooler heights offer respite for humans from the hot plains below, and its higher altitudes provide a refuge for flora and fauna.
Mt. Elgon consists of five major peaks:
Wagagai (4,321 metres (14,177ft)), in Uganda
Sudek (4,302 metres (14,114ft)) on the Kenya/Uganda border
Koitobos (4,222 metres (13,852ft)), a flat-topped basalt column in Kenya
Mubiyi (4,211 metres (13,816ft)) in Uganda
Masaba (4,161 metres (13,652ft)) in Uganda
Other features of note are:
The Caldera— Elgon's is one of the largest intact calderas in the world.[9]
Subsidiary craters to the Southwest: All about 25 km across, Bududa, and Manafwa rings intersect the caldera and Bububo with a central plug sits at its edge. The smaller Tororo marks the plain almost 50 km from Elgon’s peak.
Ngwarisha, Makingeny, Chepnyalil, and Kitum caves: Kitum Cave is over 60 metres (200ft) wide and penetrates 200 metres (660ft) into the mountain. The cave contains salt deposits and it is frequented by wild elephants that lick the salt exposed by gouging the walls with their tusks.[12] Richard Preston's book The Hot Zone (1994) described the cave's association with the Marburg virus after two people who had visited it (one in 1980 and another in 1987) contracted the disease and died.[13]
The mountain soil is red laterite. The mountain is the catchment area for several rivers such as the Suam River, which becomes the Turkwel downstream and drains into Lake Turkana, and the Nzoia River and the Lwakhakha River, which flow to Lake Victoria. The towns of Mbale, Uganda and Kitale, Kenya are in the foothills of the mountain. The area around the mountain is protected by two Mount Elgon National Parks, one on each side of the international border.
Fauna
A population of African bush elephants is present around the mountain that ventures deep into caves to access salt licks. This population was formerly present around the entire mountain, but has since been reduced to the Kenyan side, where they venture into Kitum Cave.[14]
An endemic subspecies of the bushbuck (Tragelaphus scriptus heterochrous) is restricted to the mountain. The possibly extinctDu Toit's torrent frog (Arthroleptides dutoiti), considered an EDGE species due to its evolutionary distinctiveness, is known only from a single specimen collected on the Kenyan side of the mountain.[16]
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