The volcanic field is located in the Bayuda Desert within the great bend of the Nile,[1] 300 kilometres (190 mi) north of Khartoum.

[2] It lies 80 kilometres (50 mi) away from Merowe; there are wells at Abu Khorit and Sani[3] north of the volcanic field.

[13] Usually the cones reach heights of over 400 metres (1,300 ft)[8] and are formed by volcanic ash, lapilli, lava bombs, and scoria.

[1] Explosion craters[1] and sporadic maars are also found,[2] they are surrounded by tephra deposits which form low rims of pyroclastic material[15] and which also cover neighboring volcanoes.

[11] Hosh ed Salam ("dark enclosure"[16]) crater is 500 metres (1,600 ft) deep and 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) wide;[1] other craters are Jebel Hebeish and El Muweilih, which have formed shallow rises above the surrounding terrain and have cut into the basement rocks.

[24] The basement consists of granites of Precambrian and Paleozoic age[1] that belong to the Bayuda terrane,[2] which together with gneisses form a gentle pediplain away from rougher landscape along the Nile.

[25] Later on during the Cretaceous the Nubian Formation was laid down, and there are hints of a domal uplift in the Bayuda area,[3] which probably predates the onset of volcanism and may have influenced the course of the Nile.

[27] Various xenoliths have been found, including garnet-containing clinopyroxenite, harzburgite, garnet hornblendite, amphibole-containing peridotite, olivine and spinel pyroxenite, and websterite.

[29] In general, the composition resembles that of other Sudanese-Egyptian volcanoes,[2] and about two different magma families have been identified which originate from disparate mantle domains.