Top 10 Volcanoes in Yemen
Yemen is not a country most people associate with volcanoes, yet it sits on one of the most extensive young volcanic fields in Arabia and includes one of the few currently active volcanoes on the Arabian plate. The harrats — broad basalt fields — cover huge parts of the western highlands, and the islands of the Red Sea add several active and dormant cones. These ten are the main landmarks.
1. Jebel al-Tair
A small volcanic island in the southern Red Sea that erupted unexpectedly in 2007, killing several Yemeni soldiers stationed there. The eruption was the first historical activity recorded at the island and confirmed Jebel al-Tair as one of the few currently active Arabian volcanoes.
2. Zubair group
A chain of small volcanic islands in the southern Red Sea south of Jebel al-Tair. In 2011 and 2013, two new islands were born from undersea eruptions in this group — one of the very few modern examples of new land being formed by eruption.
3. Harrat Dhamar
A young basaltic field around the city of Dhamar in the central highlands, with scoria cones, lava flows and tuff rings. Historic eruptions have not been confirmed but Quaternary activity is well documented. The area carries one of the densest archaeological records in Yemen.
4. Harrat al-Sirat
A vast harrat in the western highlands extending into Saudi Arabia, mainly Pleistocene basalts overlying older volcanic rocks. The landscape is one of dark basaltic plateaus dissected by deep wadis.
5. Harrat al-Buqum
Another extensive basaltic field, mostly in Saudi Arabia but with extensions into northern Yemen. Cinder cones and lava fields are well preserved; some young flows look like they could have erupted within the last few thousand years.
6. Jabal an-Nabi Shu'ayb
The highest mountain in Yemen and in the Arabian Peninsula, at 3,666 metres. Not a classical stratovolcano, but built on extensive Tertiary and Quaternary volcanic rocks. The summit gives panoramic views over the central highlands and the surrounding harrats.
7. Harrat al-Lunayyir extension
The Saudi Arabian harrat that hosted a notable seismic crisis in 2009 extends into northwestern Yemen. Cinder cones along the extension show that magmatic plumbing reaches across the border.
8. Harrat Tihamah
A coastal basaltic field on the Red Sea side of the country, with young-looking flows that reach the shore. The combination of basalt and coral makes for unusual coastal geology.
9. Jebel Zukur
Another small Red Sea island in the Hanish archipelago, a low volcanic edifice with a contested history of small phreatic activity. The political status of the islands has long been disputed between Yemen and Eritrea.
10. Aden volcanic complex
The peninsula on which the city of Aden sits is itself a young volcanic edifice — a Miocene to Pleistocene basaltic shield with later cones and craters. Crater Town, the old city of Aden, sits inside a half-eroded volcanic crater.
Why Yemen sits on so much basalt
Yemen lies at the southern edge of the Arabian plate, near the rift of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. As Arabia pulls away from Africa, magma rises in fissures and at scattered points behind the rift. The result is a mosaic of young basalt fields rather than a single line of central volcanoes.
A region difficult to visit
Modern Yemen is largely inaccessible to foreign visitors due to the ongoing war. Most academic fieldwork has paused or moved to Saudi-side harrats. Anyone interested in Yemeni volcanism today works mostly with satellite data and earlier field samples.
See them on the map
Filter the map to Yemen and the basaltic darkness of the western highlands appears clearly, with a string of small volcanic islands offshore in the Red Sea. The Aden complex sits at the far southern tip.