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Recent and Active Units of the Danakil Sea (Dagad Salt Plain) and Afdera Lake

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Geology of Afar (East Africa)

Part of the book series: Regional Geology Reviews ((RGR))

Abstract

The northern Afar extremity, also called Danakil, extending into Ethiopia and Eritrea, is characterised by a wide lowland area, up to 250 km long and increasing in width from north to south up to 70 km, occupied along its median axis by a salt plain 120 km long and 30 km wide on average, with minimum altitudes of 120 m below sea level, corresponding to a former gulf of the Red Sea that dried out around 25,000 years ago.

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Varet, J. (2018). Recent and Active Units of the Danakil Sea (Dagad Salt Plain) and Afdera Lake. In: Geology of Afar (East Africa). Regional Geology Reviews. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60865-5_7

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