Nemrut (volcano) inside the caldera, becoming the world's second largest caldera lake. Subsequent eruptions separated a small lake Ilı from Lake Nemrut. Nemrut volcano has an elliptical shape, its size at the base is 27×18 km, and its center contains 377.5 km of volcanic materials. The caldera of Nemrut is the largest in Turkey, the fourth largest in Europe and sixteenth largest in the world. Locals link the name of the volcano with the legendary ruler Nimrod, who is credited with the construction of the Tower of Babel. Turkish chronicles of the 16th century reproduce a local legend as follows: Eruptions of
Nemrut (volcano) the city Tatvan, in the north-western shore of Lake Van. Nemrut was probably formed in the early Quaternary Period, about 1 million years ago. It showed the greatest activity in the Pleistocene, with regular eruptions occurring in the Holocene. In the middle Pleistocene, about 250,000 years ago, a major eruption formed a lava flow over 60 km long, which blocked the water discharge from the Van basin and formed Lake Van, the world's largest alkali endorheic lake. In the same period, the conical top of the volcano collapsed inward, forming an 8.3×7 km caldera. Later, the freshwater Lake Nemrut formed