Mount Karisimbi

Mount Karisimbi stands on the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, reaching an elevation of about 4,507 meters, the highest of the eight major peaks making up the Virunga Mountains chain, which this atlas already documents as a whole range. It is a dormant stratovolcano built up by the same rift-related volcanism as the rest of the Virunga chain along the Albertine Rift, the western branch of the East African Rift, with its last eruption dated to around 8050 BCE. Its name derives from the Kinyarwanda word for snow, which occasionally dusts its summit, and its saddle with the neighboring Mount Bisoke was the site of primatologist Dian Fossey's Karisoke Research Center, founded to study the mountain gorillas that inhabit the range's forested slopes. This entity documents Mount Karisimbi specifically as a geological formation, the highest peak of the Virunga chain and the site of Dian Fossey's pioneering mountain gorilla research station.