Mysteriously mobile ‘mound’ to be rebranded

MARC NKWAME in Ngorongoro

A MYSTERIOUS ‘shifting sand dune,’ which moves like a ‘walking mountain,’ in Ngorongoro Crater, and perhaps fit to contest in the list of ‘Wonders of the World,’ is yet to be fully marketed, it has been learnt.

The declaration was made by Olduvai Site Museum Deputy Conservator Mr John Peter Pareso in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority (NCAA) recently, stressing that the strange “mobile mound” should be ranked high among the ‘wonders of the world,’ though little is still known about it, because it was only recently that it was included in the NCAA map.

“Mountains do not normally move, but this mysterious “hill of sand” has been traveling at a speed of 20 meters per year, and now NCAA mulls rebranding and marketing it afresh,” he pointed out.

The still ‘nameless mountain,’ as high as more than 10 meters, with a width measuring 100 meters, has covered slightly above one kilometre since its movement was detected and documented in the early 1960s.

He said the shifting sand which is wind propelled, though still requires special research, in 2001 headed towards a river and people feared it could dissolve in the water mass, only to suddenly change direction miraculously.

“The ‘moving earth mound’ has been changing shapes like in 1991 when its height increased, and again ten years before that in 1981, it had split into two segments with the smaller one heading in a different direction.

“And in 2011, there was a slight change in its composure, when it seemed to have grown more compact exceeding its usual 10 meters’ height. And its normal 100-meter width seemed to have shrunk down to 50 meters wide,” Mr Pareso said.

Experts say the dark-sand surfaced hill was formed over 3,000 years ago from a massive eruption at ‘Oldonyo L’engai’ in an active volcano, being Tanzania’s third highest mountain located on the leeward of Ngorongoro Conservation Area.

The conservator further said records show that a cone from ‘L’engai’ shot off and landed at Osukunua, an area within NCAA from where it started its slow movement in the South-West direction for hundreds of years, before it changed its bearings to North- West in 2001.

Traveling south, the mountain has covered both the Salei and Angata plains, gone past Naibor Hills, and is now within the Oldoinyo-Gol plains heading towards the so-called ‘Ngorongoro endless plains,’ he added.

He hinted that the first beacon to record the mountain’s movement was placed there in 1969, after which others followed in 1976, 1981, 1985, 1990, 1995, 1998 and 2003 in that order.

“The latest one was placed in December 2011 during the country’s 50th Anniversary of Independence,” he further said.