Global Volcanism Program

The Global Volcanism Program has no activity reports available for Biu Plateau.

The Global Volcanism Program has no Weekly Reports available for Biu Plateau.

The Global Volcanism Program has no Bulletin Reports available for Biu Plateau.

Basic Data

Volcano Number

Last Known Eruption

Elevation

Latitude
Longitude

224050

Pleistocene

930 m / 3,051 ft

10.75°N
12.088°E

Morphology

Volcano Landform
Cluster

Volcano Types
Volcanic field

Rock Types

Major
Basalt / Picro-Basalt

Tectonic Setting

Intraplate
Continental crust (> 25 km)

Population

Within 5 km
Within 10 km
Within 30 km
Within 100 km

61,520
61,520
174,501
2,171,586

Geological Summary

The Biu Plateau in NE Nigeria is composed of basaltic lava flows. A large number of recent cinder cones with well-defined craters are aligned in a NNW-SSE direction over a distance of 50 km. The cinder cones and lava flows often contain abundant peridotite xenoliths. Work in this area has been inconsistent and infrequent. Age dates (K-Ar) were reported by Lar and others (2013; citing Baudin, 1991) as being in the 5-1.4 Ma range. Fitton and Dunlop (1985) presented K-Ar ages of 5.20 ± 0.33 Ma for a basalt 24 km S of the town of Biu near the base of the plateau, and 0.84 ± 0.09 Ma for a basanite on the north end of the plateau; neither roadside sample was clearly identified with a specific cone. Obaje (2009) describes the chronology of the Biu Plateau as "well controlled by radiometric dating" with plateau basalts in the 7-5 Ma range and Quaternary basalts less than 1 Ma; no citations are provided. A pollen record from Lake Tila (Salzmann, 2000) spanned the entire Holocene; however, adjacent graph scales showing age (in ka BP) and core depth terminating at 840 cm have apparently been misunderstood, resulting in Salzmann being cited in some places as indicating volcanism 840,000 years ago.

References

The following references have all been used during the compilation of data for this volcano, it is not a comprehensive bibliography.

Baudin P, 1991. Le magmatisme Mesozoique a Cenozoique du fosse de la Benoue (Nigeria). Geochronologie, Petrogenese, Cadre geodynamique. PhD Thesis, Universite de Droit d’Economie et des Sciences d’Aix-Marseille, France.

Fitton J G, 1987. The Cameroon line, West Africa: a comparison between oceanic and continental alkaline volcanism. In: Fitton J G and Upton B G J (eds) Alkaline Igneous Rocks, Geol Soc Amer Spec Pub 30: 273-291.

Fitton J G, Dunlop H M, 1985. The Cameroon line, West Africa, and its bearing on the origin of oceanic and continental alkali basalt. Earth Planet Sci Lett, 72: 23-38.

Lar U A, Lekmang I C, Shuaibu M T, Mahmud U M, Yakubu T A, 2013. Volcanoes of NIgeria: A Preliminary Study. 7th Conference on African Geology, Assiut, Egypt. November 2013. https://doi.org/10.13140/2.1.2253.2481

Obaje N G, 2009. Geology and Mineral Resources of Nigeria. Springer.

Salzmann U, 2000. Are modern savannas degraded forests? - A Holocene pollen record from the Sudanian vegetation zone of NE Nigeria. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, v. 9, p. 1-15. Springer Verlag.

Eruptive History

The Global Volcanism Program is not aware of any Holocene eruptions from Biu Plateau. If this volcano has had large eruptions (VEI >= 4) prior to 12,000 years ago, information might be found on the Biu Plateau page in the LaMEVE (Large Magnitude Explosive Volcanic Eruptions) database, a part of the Volcano Global Risk Identification and Analysis Project (VOGRIPA).

This compilation of synonyms and subsidiary features may not be comprehensive. Features are organized into four major categories: Cones, Craters, Domes, and Thermal Features. Synonyms of features appear indented below the primary name. In some cases additional feature type, elevation, or location details are provided.

Cones

Feature Name

Feature Type

Elevation

Latitude

Longitude

Bos Hill

Cone - Crater

738 m

10° 47' 34.00" N

12° 1' 48.00" E

Buratai Hills

Cone - Crater

797 m

10° 55' 9.00" N

12° 0' 24.00" E

Dutse Bugor Hill

Cone - Crater

771 m

10° 49' 7.00" N

12° 5' 57.00" E

Dutse Gidi Hill

Cone - Crater

795 m

10° 43' 17.00" N

12° 7' 42.00" E

Dutsin Maldau Hill

Cone - Crater

777 m

10° 42' 52.00" N

12° 6' 3.00" E

Dutsin Mangada Hill

Cone

694 m

10° 47' 33.00" N

12° 7' 59.00" E

Dutsin Tangurmi Hill

Cone

725 m

10° 41' 53.00" N

12° 9' 33.00" E

Ga-Hizshi Hill

Cone

857 m

10° 38' 40.00" N

12° 7' 56.00" E

Ga-Zumta Hill

Cone - Crater

784 m

10° 38' 57.00" N

12° 6' 44.00" E

Gumya Hill

Cone

797 m

10° 33' 30.00" N

12° 6' 18.00" E

Hilja Hill

Cone - Crater

930 m

10° 47' 9.00" N

12° 5' 3.00" E

Ngwa Hill

Cone - Crater

706 m

10° 49' 3.00" N

12° 1' 21.00" E

Pelamabelu Hill (N)

Cone - Crater

870 m

10° 50' 36.00" N

12° 6' 0.00" E

Pelamabelu Hill (S)

Cone

797 m

10° 41' 13.00" N

12° 7' 34.00" E

Shelamba Hills

Cone - Crater

715 m

10° 52' 45.00" N

12° 5' 34.00" E

Tamza Hill

Cone - Crater

731 m

10° 46' 21.00" N

12° 3' 29.00" E

Tum Hills

Cone

732 m

10° 36' 51.00" N

12° 6' 37.00" E

Wiga Hill

Cone - Crater

771 m

10° 40' 50.00" N

12° 0' 24.00" E

Zagu Hill

Cone - Crater

661 m

10° 56' 52.00" N

12° 5' 1.00" E

Craters

Feature Name

Feature Type

Elevation

Latitude

Longitude

Biski Hill

Crater

532 m

10° 35' 40.00" N

12° 26' 12.00" E

Cholutaku Hill

Crater - Cone

763 m

10° 29' 44.00" N

12° 8' 24.00" E

Dutsin Miringa Hill

Crater

822 m

10° 43' 49.00" N

12° 6' 57.00" E

Ga-Guldumber Hill

Crater

828 m

10° 42' 15.00" N

12° 7' 22.00" E

Ga-Tila Hill

Crater - Cone

876 m

10° 32' 34.00" N

12° 8' 26.00" E

Gwaram Hill

Crater - Cone

861 m

10° 39' 39.00" N

12° 7' 54.00" E

Tila Lake

Crater

710 m

10° 32' 41.00" N

12° 7' 53.00" E

Photo Gallery

The Global Volcanism Program has no photographs available for Biu Plateau.

Smithsonian Sample Collections Database

There are no samples for Biu Plateau in the Smithsonian's NMNH Department of Mineral Sciences Rock and Ore collection.

External Sites

Copernicus Browser

The Copernicus Browser replaced the Sentinel Hub Playground browser in 2023, to provide access to Earth observation archives from the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, the main distribution platform for data from the EU Copernicus missions.

WOVOdat
   Single Volcano View
   Temporal Evolution of Unrest
   Side by Side Volcanoes

WOVOdat is a database of volcanic unrest; instrumentally and visually recorded changes in seismicity, ground deformation, gas emission, and other parameters from their normal baselines. It is sponsored by the World Organization of Volcano Observatories (WOVO) and presently hosted at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.

GVMID Data on Volcano Monitoring Infrastructure The Global Volcano Monitoring Infrastructure Database GVMID, is aimed at documenting and improving capabilities of volcano monitoring from the ground and space. GVMID should provide a snapshot and baseline view of the techniques and instrumentation that are in place at various volcanoes, which can be use by volcano observatories as reference to setup new monitoring system or improving networks at a specific volcano. These data will allow identification of what monitoring gaps exist, which can be then targeted by remote sensing infrastructure and future instrument deployments.

IRIS seismic stations/networks

Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Data Services map showing the location of seismic stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 0.18° (about 20 km at mid-latitudes) from the given location of Biu Plateau. Users can customize a variety of filters and options in the left panel. Note that if there are no stations are known the map will default to show the entire world with a "No data matched request" error notice.

UNAVCO GPS/GNSS stations

Geodetic Data Services map from UNAVCO showing the location of GPS/GNSS stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 20 km from the given location of Biu Plateau. Users can customize the data search based on station or network names, location, and time window. Requires Adobe Flash Player.

Large Eruptions of Biu Plateau

Information about large Quaternary eruptions (VEI >= 4) is cataloged in the Large Magnitude Explosive Volcanic Eruptions (LaMEVE) database of the Volcano Global Risk Identification and Analysis Project (VOGRIPA).

EarthChem

EarthChem develops and maintains databases, software, and services that support the preservation, discovery, access and analysis of geochemical data, and facilitate their integration with the broad array of other available earth science parameters. EarthChem is operated by a joint team of disciplinary scientists, data scientists, data managers and information technology developers who are part of the NSF-funded data facility Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA). IEDA is a collaborative effort of EarthChem and the Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS).