La Grille
La Grille is a volcano in the Comoros is located in the Comoros archipelago on the island of Grande Comore (also known as Ngazidja).
La Grille is a shield volcano at the northern end of island and lacks a summit caldera like its larger and more well-known neighbor to the south, Karthala volcano. The basaltic La Grille volcano also contrasts with Karthala in its abundance of pyroclastic cones up to 800m in height.[1] The cones were erupted along fissures paralleling the summit ridge, which has an irregular profile and is elongated in a N-S direction, and from radial fissures that reach as far as the coast.[2] Recent lava flows, some perhaps as young as a few hundred years, have reached the sea from fissures on the lower western, northern, and eastern flanks.
Geography
La Grille is located on the island of Grande Comore, an island in the Comoros in the Comoros archipelago bounded by the Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean. Occupying the northern island of Grande Comore, bound on the south by the Karthala, another volcano rising to 2361 meters. The road going around the island of Grande Comore via the coast sides the east, north and west of La Grille connecting the airport Prince Said Ibrahim to the west. Many villages are located near the coast and on the volcano where there are also electricity pylons.
La Grille appears as a mountain range, elongated in a north-south, consisting of a stratovolcano cones covered slag height of 800 meters on average,[3] giving the volcano a maximum altitude of 1087 meters.[2] Unlike its neighbor Karthala, La Grille does not have caldera. Different eruptive vents are organized along the fissures that run the volcano from north to south, parallel to the ridge of the mountain, and other cracks along the coast winner. Of these eruptive vents, lava basalt escapes sometimes reaching the sea on the east, north and west sides of the volcano. Many lava flows are still visible as few are rapidly recolonized by tropical Coconut trees on the island.
History
Although the exact date of the last eruption of La Grille is unknown, it seems that the volcano is erupting there are only a few hundred years because of some lava flows covering its sides and still not recolonized by vegetation.
References
- ↑ Global Volcanism Program, La Grille, image
- 1 2 Global Volcanism Program, La Grille
- ↑ http://www.ais-asecna.org/en/atlas/comores/moroni.htm
- Siebert L, Simkin T (2002-). Volcanoes of the World: an Illustrated Catalog of Holocene Volcanoes and their Eruptions. Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program Digital Information Series, GVP-3, (http://www.volcano.si.edu).
Coordinates: 11°28′S 43°20′E / 11.47°S 43.33°E