ETHIOPIA - Danakil depression - Dallol

We have travelled extensively during the past 2 years (2011 and 2012) throughout Ethiopia on an extraordinary photographic journey. Our focus has been the collecting of photographs as testimonies of a splendid and remote vanishing world, be it natural or cultural. We have independently travelled with our own car through the most remote areas of this East African mysterious land, all the way into difficultly accessible areas, sometimes even into forbidden zones under military escorts (esp. deep into the Danakil Depression bordering Eritrea and South Omo Valley) in order to get as close as one can get to shoot both eye and soul-catching images.

2013

Afar siting by Mount Dallol

Aerial view of the Mount Dallol

Sulfur 'egg shell' structures blooming on Mount Dallol geothermal field

Salt and sulfur structures on Mount Dallol geothermal field

Remains of salt formations within dried-out solfataras atop Mount Dallol

Black Lake's deadly toxic waters lying at the foot of Mount Dallol

Carbon dioxide gas coloured waters of the Geysers Lake on the Danakil Depression

The wastelands of the Danakil Depression's salt lake lie at 116 meters below sea level

Afar workers leave the salt extraction fields of the Danakil Depression with endless caravans of camels and donkeys for their long and exhausting journey to deliver the extracted salt to the city of Mekele

Back and forth from the town of Bere Ale and the Danakil Depression, men and camels have been circulating on this salt-road for over 3,000 years.

Bishofite, an extremely rare substance, emerges from the ground and expands over the salted ground of the Danakil Depression.

Flows of liquid green 12O°C-heated molten Bishofite, an extremely rare substance, emerge from the oxidized salt surface of the Danakil Depression and dry-up in seconds into a waxy floor.

Salt and sulfur made landscape of the geothermal field of Mount Dallol

A phreatic eruption opened the Black Lake in 1926, amidst this vast expanse of iron-red salt surrounded by the tall saline pitons of Mount Dallol.

Gypsum pitons emerge at the south-western tip of Mount Dallol bordering Eritrea.

I wrote some technical papers on the Dallol (in French):

1) Detay M. — L’Erta Ale : futur volcan sous-marin ou stigmate d’un rift est-africain avorté ? in LAVE, revue de l’association de volcanologie européenne, 150, 26-29 et 16-17 (2011).

You can get the paper here

2) Detay M. — Le Dallol revisité : entre explosion phréatomagmatique, rifting intracontinental, manifestations hydrothermales et halocinèse, in LAVE, revue de l’association de volcanologie européenne, 151, 7-19 (2011).

You can get the paper here

We also published a book on Volcanoes (in French)

Detay M., Detay A.-M. — Volcans - de feu et d'eau. Belin Ed. (2013). ISBN 978-2-7011-7561-4

You can have a look here

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