Well, The
Lake Abbe is actually a salt lake, the largest and final of a chain of 6
connected lakes on the Ethiopia-Djibouti border. The lake Abbe lies on a basin which
is called the Afar Depression at a point where the Arabian, Nubian, and
Somalian plates are pulling away from each other. The strain set off by the
splitting Nubian and Somalian plates has formed a peculiar landscape around
Lake Abbe. When the two plates drift apart, the crust above them thins until it
cracks.
Moreover Magma
pushes to the surface via the thin spots and warm underwater springs. When the
boiling water bubble up to the surface, they put the dissolved calcium
carbonates generating towering chimneys, the same way water trickling down the
roof of limestone caves makes stalactites and stalagmites. Specific of these
chimneys can reach about the heights of 50 meters, and puffs of steam vent from
the top. Moreover the strange landscape motivated Charlton Heston to shoot his
classic 1968 film, "Planet of the Apes", on the shores of Lake Abbe.
The Afar
Depression is captivating to geologists since it is the place where new ocean
is being shaped. Therefore the depression is forming as the African plate ruptures
into the Nubian and Somalian plates. In a few million years, the Indian Ocean
will break down through the coastal highlands and flood the Afar Depression,
forming a new ocean and making the Horn of Africa a large island. Hence when
continental plates move apart in the ocean, it generates new sea floor, but in
East Africa, the procedure is happening on dry ground, where it is called
continental rifting.
The Lake
Abbe is mainly fed by the Awash River, and seasonal streams which pass in the
lake from the west and south, crossing the vast salt flats. On the northwest
shore rises Mount Dama Ali, a dormant volcano. The history tells us, that the
Lake Abbe was once a much larger lake but diversion of water from Awash River
for irrigation in the 1950s has dry up the lake surface area by 2/3’s and water
level by five meters. The adjacent town lies about two hundreds kilometers
away, but there’s a little settlement established by the Afar people near the
lake's shore. Aside from the Afar shepherds who bring their herds of sheep or
donkeys to feed, the only inhabitants of this lake are pink Flamingos.
