Simien Mountains

The Simien Mountains rise in the Amhara Region of northern Ethiopia, holding Ras Dashen, at roughly 4,550 meters the highest peak in Ethiopia and among the highest in Africa. The range is the deeply eroded remnant of a vast basaltic shield formed by flood-basalt volcanism during the Oligocene epoch, tens of millions of years ago, part of the same broad Ethiopian Highlands volcanic province produced as the African and Arabian plates began separating along the Red Sea and East African Rift systems. Long after the original volcanic shield ceased growing, extensive erosion by rivers and glaciation cut deeply into the layered basalt, carving the range's present-day landscape of jagged pinnacles, sheer cliffs and deep gorges dropping as much as 1,500 meters from the plateau rim. That combination of ancient basalt geology and dramatic erosional relief supports one of Africa's richest concentrations of endemic wildlife, including the gelada and the Walia ibex. This entity documents the Simien Mountains specifically as a geological formation, an Oligocene flood-basalt shield deeply carved by erosion into a landscape of pinnacles and gorges.