Ethiopia - The Erta Ale Volcano

Ancien lava and salt deposits surround Erta Ale Volcano and the inhospitable Afar Depression  - Photo George Steinmetz

In 2005, the ground suddenly opened and swallowed goats, camels and all sort of living animals which were on the surrounding area of the Erta Ale Volcano.

The scene looked like came out of a movie. For 3 days clouds of ashes dimmed the sun and flew through the air coming out from the subterranean caverns like huge black birds thrown away through the sky, landing all over the surrounding areas of the Erta Ale crater.

Although we may be talking about one of the most inhospitable regions on Earth and when seen from above it may look like an Artic frozen desert, geologically the Afar Depression is one of the most active regions on Earth.

Erta Ale boiling magma lake at the crater

In fact, underneath Afar' s timeless visage there's a much different nature well hidden below surface. Earth's rocky rind is ripping apart, 12 active volcanoes underground, chambers of magma, steaming geysers, boiling cauldrons and a fiery lake of lava which boils constantly making the region a clock bomb ready to explode at any moment. Nature's fury is well covered under a desert which few would dare to cross.

Not much is known about Erta Ale and the fact that the native Afar people have a legendary reputation for viciousness towards outsiders also doesn't help. Travel guides always recommend hiring "one or maybe two armed guards or police" to visit Erta Ale otherwise the adventure can cost your life.

However, they welcomed and helped recently a team from BBC, but that was an exception.

On January 16, 2012 a group of German, Austrian and Hungarian scientists was attacked on their way to Erta Ale. Five scientists/tourists were executed on site, some taken as hostages others were injured while trying to escape. Afar people still fight, in some sort of middle age form, for their desert lands where they extract salt, with 30.000 years, from a time where the Red Sea floods reached the region.

Geologically, scientists predict that, in some million years, there will be dramatic changes in Africa 's geography: The Afar depression, and the entire Great Rift Valley, will cradle a new sea which will connect the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean and cleaves the Horn of Africa from the continent. more here