Bayuda Volcanic Field

The Bayuda volcanic field is located in the Bayuda Desert of NE Sudan, south of the major Abu Hamed bend of the Nile River about 300 km N of Khartoum. More than 90 eruptive centers along a WNW-ESE line were constructed over Precambrian and Paleozoic granitic rocks near the center of the Bayuda Desert. Most vents are cinder cones that produced lava flows which breached the cones. About 10% of vents in the field are explosion craters, the largest of which, named Hosh ed Dalam, is 1.3 km wide and up to 500 m deep. The youngest basalts appear to post-date the last period of moist climate in Sudan, which ended as recently as about 5,000 years ago. One of the least eroded lava flows was dated at about 1,100 years ago.