Mt. Cameroon, East Of Nigeria - 999 Words

Mount Cameroon is located within the Republic of Cameroon, east of Nigeria. It is considered to be one of Africa s most active and largest volcanoes, having recently erupted in 2000 followed by a smaller eruption in 2012. Mt. Cameroon belongs to a seamount chain of volcanoes that extends northeast from the Gulf of Guinea. Cameroon does not lie on a plate boundary, making it an intraplate volcano. Despite being one of the most active volcanoes in Africa, the risks it poses does not necessarily include the massive, fiery, plinian eruptions one would associate with a volcano considered very large and most active over an entire continent. However, Mt. Cameroon does have other risks and hazards due to its nature, and requires preventative†¦show more content†¦While Cameroon has shown moderate eruptions in the past, the volcano also showcases a more effusive type of eruption. The low viscosity lava flow Cameroon exhibits is not much of a surprise because the volcano is part of a chain of volcanoes, indicating that it is currently sitting over a hot spot. The significance behind a chain of volcanoes is that hot spots, mantle plumes, â€Å"... tend to be largely unaffected by plate motions† (howvolcanoeswork). This allows the mantle plume to create a volcano, have the crust shift due to plate tectonics, create another volcano, and so on. The fact that Mt. Cameroon is intraplate also reinforces a hot spot mechanism because there is no subduction present to cause flux melting. The last major eruption of Mt. Cameroon took place in 2000. It was reported that during the initial explosion, â€Å"... [Cameroon] produced only tephra and ballistic blocks† (Smithsonian). An a a lava flow was also noted, which flowed about 850 meters. Due to the volcanoes remote location, information about the a a lava flow was collected using the MODIS Thermal Alert System, or MODVOLC. The way this works is that NASA has a satellite equipped with Moderate Resolution Im aging Spectroradiometer sensors that orbits the Earth in a 48 hours period. While it performs it s global scan, a specific algorithm is used to search each pixel in every image it takes for heat anomalies. These