Ankaratra is a cinder cone

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

range located about southwest of

Antananarivo Antananarivo (Malagasy language, Malagasy: ; French language, French: ''Tananarive'', ), also known by its colonial shorthand form Tana (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Madagascar. The administrative area of the city, known ...

, the capital city of

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. It lies between the towns of Arivonimamo to the north, Ambatolampy to the east, Faratsiho to the west and Betafo to the south. It is located in the Central Highlands. The highest peak in Ankaratra is '' Mount Tsiafajavona'' ("never out of the fog"), at 2,644 metres (8,668 ft.) above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

. Some trace of activity remains in the southernmost part of the range, creating hot springs in the area around

Antsirabe Antsirabe () also known as Ville d'eau is the list of cities in Madagascar, third largest city in Madagascar and the capital of the Vakinankaratra region, with a population of 265,018 in 2014. In Madagascar, Antsirabe is known for its relatively ...

. The last eruption of Ankaratra took place in the very recent

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

References

Volcanoes of Madagascar Mountain ranges of Madagascar Antananarivo Province Cinder cones Active volcanoes Madagascar ericoid thickets {{Madagascar-geo-stub

See also

References