The Empakaai Crater or Embagai (Kasoko la Empakai in Swahili, also Ela Nairobi) is a collapsed volcanic caldera located in Naiyobi ward of Ngorongoro District in Arusha Region of Tanzania. It is 300 meters high and 6 kilometers wide. The crater is filled by a deep alkaline lake (a soda lake) that occupies around 75% of the crater's bottom and is approximately 85 meters deep. The crater is a caldera and is within UNESCO Biosphere Reserve protection program
Empakaai's elevation on the outside is 3,200 m above sea level on the western side and 2,590 m above sea level on the eastern side. Empakaai is nearly always blanketed in mist due to its high altitude, and the lake appears emerald or deep blue in color. The crater is part of the Crater Highlands geographic zone.
Flower on Empakaai, Ngorongoro DistrictEmpakaai beach, Ngorongoro District
^Dawson, John Barry (2008). "Chapter 6. The Neogene–Recent volcanic rocks". The Gregory Rift Valley and Neogene – Recent Volcanoes of Northern Tanzania. Memoirs, 33. Vol. 33. Bath: Geological Society. doi:10.1144/M33. ISBN978-1-86239-267-0. OCLC1250635998.
Page 42 is listing the mountain as "Elanairobi/Embagai (Empakai)"
^Kempe, Stephan; Kazmierczak, Józef (January 2011). "Soda Lakes". In Joachim Reitner and Volker Thiel (ed.). Encyclopedia of Geobiology. pp. 824–829 (see p. 825). doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-9212-1_192.
^"Embagai Crater overview". volcano.si.edu. Global Volcanism Program, Department of Mineral Sciences, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2023-03-25.