Katwe craters
The Katwe craters or Katwe-Kikorongo explosion craters are a group of volcanic craters within Queen Elizabeth National Park in Toro, Uganda. The volcanic field is roughly in size. The individual craters vary widely in size, but the largest are up to in diameter and deep. The unusual formations were formed individually by a series of violent volcanic explosions over the last 1 million years. The explosions were a result of superheated gas and steam, and despite the volcanic activity, there was no lava flow. Many of the craters have now developed into saltwater lakes or lush grasslands . Overview. The first written report of Lake Katwe was penned by Speke, who heard second-hand about a legendarily wealthy source of salt close to the base of the Mountains of the Moon. By that time, the lake had been mined for at least 400 years, and with salt being regarded as more valuable than precious metal in pre colonial Uganda, control of this prized possession regularly shifted between the region's different kingdoms. Indeed when Speke visited Uganda in 1882, Lake Katwe had for some years been part of Toro, but in the late 1870s it was recaptured by  Omukama Kabalega, a coup that led to the first military confrontation between Bunyoro and a combined British-Toro expedition led by Captain Fredrick Lugard Lugard arrived at Katwe in 1890 and recorded that: 'Everywhere were piles of salt in heaps covered with grass, some beautifully white and clean'.