Everything about The Ruwenzori totally explained
The
Ruwenzori Range, now officially called
Rwenzori Mountains (the spelling having been changed in about 1980 to conform more closely with the local tribal name) is a small but spectacular
mountain range of central
Africa, often referred to as Mt. Rwenzori, located on the border between
Uganda and the
DRC, with heights of up to 5,109 m (16,761 ft) at . The highest Rwenzoris are permanently snow-capped, and they, along with
Mount Kilimanjaro and
Mount Kenya are the only such in Africa. The Ruwenzoris are often identified with the "
Mountains of the Moon" mentioned by
Ptolemy, but the descriptions are too vague to make this definite.
The mountains formed about three
million years ago in the late
Pliocene as a result of an uplifted block of
crystalline rocks such as:
gneiss,
amphibolite granite and
quartzite,
"pushed up by tremendous forces originating deep within the earth’s crust".
This uplift divided the paleolake
Obweruka and created two of the present-day
African Great Lakes:
Albert and
Edward
on the flanks of the Albertine (western) Rift of the East African Rift, the African part of the
Great Rift Valley.
The range is about 120 km (75 mi) long and 65 km (40 mi) wide. It consists of six massifs separated by deep gorges:
Mount Stanley (5,109m),
Mount Speke (4,890m),
Mount Baker (4,843m),
Mount Emin (4,798m),
Mount Gessi (4,715m) and
Mount Luigi di Savoia (4,627m).
Sources:
Glacial Recession in Rwenzori
A subject of concern in recent years has been the impact of
climate change on Rwenzori's
glaciers. In
1906 the Rwenzori had 43 named glaciers distributed over 6 mountains with a total area of 7.5 km²., about half the total glacier area in Africa. By 2005, less than half of these survive, on only 3 mountains, with an area of about 1.5 km². Recent scientific studies such as those by Dr Richard Taylor of
UCL have attributed this to global climate change, and investigated its impact on the mountain's
vegetation and
biodiversity.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Ruwenzori'.
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