Danakil Depression

The Danakil Depression spans roughly 200 by 50 kilometers across the northern Afar Region of Ethiopia and Eritrea, between the Ethiopian Plateau to the west and the Danakil Alps to the east, with parts of its floor lying about 125 meters below sea level, making it the third lowest-lying point on the African continent. It forms the northern part of the Afar Triangle and resulted from tectonic rifting between the Nubian Plate and the smaller Danakil microplate, a process that began roughly 11 million years ago as the microplate rotated counterclockwise, thinning and subsiding the crust between them. The depression represents an advanced stage of continental rifting approaching eventual seafloor spreading. Its southern section holds the Erta Ale volcanic range of basaltic shield and stratovolcanoes, while its northern section is dominated by sedimentary rock, saline lakes and thick evaporite salt deposits, including the hydrothermal Dallol salt formation and the Gaet'ale Pond, whose water carries the highest salinity ever recorded, about 43 percent. This entity documents the Danakil Depression specifically as a geological formation, a tectonic rift basin approaching continental breakup between the Nubian and Danakil plates.