From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Fri Jun 05 2009 - 15:47:25 EDT
Inside the hottest place on Earth
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlYVS4hscCY
The Afar Triangle cuts across Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
Three tectonic plates meet there with the African and Arabian plates
drifting apart along two separate fault lines by one centimeter a year.
The Afar Depression (also called the Afar Triangle, the Danakil
Depression, or the Denakil Plain) is a geological depression in the Horn
of Africa, where it overlaps Eritrea and the Afar Region of Ethiopia,
and slightly touches Djibouti and Somalia.
The Afar Depression is a formidable landscape which includes the
Danakil Desert and the lowest point in Africa, Lake Asal, less than 155
meters (510 ft) below sea level. Dallol, Ethiopia is also part of the
Depression, one of the hottest places year round anywhere on Earth.
The only river that flows into the Depression is the Awash River, which
ends in a chain of salt lakes, where its water evaporates as quickly as
it is supplied.
About 1,200 square kilometers (460 sq mi) of the Afar Depression is
covered by salt, and salt mining remains a major source of income for
many Afar tribes, who cut the salt into bars and carry it by mule to
other parts of Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The Afar Depression is well known as one of the cradles of hominids
with the oldest bones discovered in the world having come from this
area.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlYVS4hscCY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlYVS4hscCY
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