16 February 2008
Arusha — It was all excitement among most Arusha residents when they woke up in the morning of Wednesday February 6, to discover that glacier was covering the peak of Mount Meru, Tanzania's second highest land feature.
The beautiful new snow cap on Mt. Meru became an added tourist attraction as foreign visitors reached for their cameras to capture what was described to be a strange phenomenon because the mountain has been going without glacier cover for decades.
Local residents and foreign visitors could be seen standing on vantage points either to gaze at or capture stills of the seemingly beautiful snow covered mountain summit. The phenomenon equaled the one of sighting solar or lunar eclipses.
Heavy downpour which drenched most parts of Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions in the eve night of Tuesday, February 5 could have played part in precipitating ice on Meru's rugged peak.
"The dark-mysterious mountain lost its glacier in the late sixties," revealed local residents.
For years the summit of Meru remained brownish barren craggy feature. The mountain itself is extremely rocky and rugged proving to be a challenge to climbers. The Ngurdoto forest which surrounds Meru is also a very cold environment but despite the arctic atmosphere the mountain used to spot no glacier at its summit.
The new snowcap on Mt. Meru comes at the time when scientists and researchers round the world predict total disappearance of glacier on top of Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, by the year 2020 due to global warming.
Mount Meru on February 6.
Mount Meru, a dormant volcano, is located just a stone throw (75 kilometers west) from the legendary Mount Kilimanjaro. Meru reaches 4,566 meters (14,980 feet) in height but has lost much of its bulk due to an eastward volcanic blast which reportedly occurred about 8,000 years ago, similar to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington.
According to geological experts here, Mount Meru had a minor eruption about a century ago.
Mt. Meru is a strato-volcano feature whose history has been quite explosive. It has had four eruptions, the last of which occurred in 1910. Lava erupted from Meru varies from thin flows to thick intrusive domes. The several small cones and craters seen in the vicinity probably reflect numerous episodes of other volcanic activities in the past.
The main cone of the volcano has a caldera which is 2.2 miles (3.5 km) in diameter. It has a huge breach on its eastern side.
A fissure runs down the side of the volcano from this breach. Many debris flows came through the breach in the caldera. These cover 1500 sq km to the northeast, east and southeast. Following the eruption of this debris, a lava dome and ash cone grew on the floor of the caldera.
Both Mt. Meru and the forests below it spawn the Arusha National Park, home to variety of wildlife.
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