The Republic of Djibouti is located at the center of a collapse following the Red Sea, which lies between the plateaus of Ethiopia, Arabia and Somalia area. According to geologists, the region bounded by Lake Assal and Goubet Al-Kharab, which belongs to the Afar depression is only a link emerged for a brief moment of earthly history. Afar depression, Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, a narrow marine groove, together form a future ocean: the Eritrean coast. "He's only 25 million of age, experts say, and 500 km wide, but in two hundred million years, it will also probably large as its big brother the Atlantic."
This unique geological situation that the territory of the Republic of Djibouti remains continuously exposed to earthquakes, low intensity, however, which are the manifestations of the slow movement (2 cm per year, on average) and African plates Saudi.
The Lake Assal area - Goubet point of convergence of three portions of the rift where the earth's crust does not exceed five kilometers thick (against dozens normally), is also a favorite area for terrestrial phenomena. Thus was formed in November 1978, not far from Lake Assal a volcano forty feet high, Haroun Tazieff immediately arrived on the scene, was called "Ardoukoba."
On this occasion, we witnessed directly to a sudden gap of four feet between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, opened as a main flaw of twelve kilometers long between Lake Assal and the handle of Goubet .
From memory, this phenomenon of separation of tectonic plates had occurred at the ocean floor, where the passionate scientists around the world have granted beyond the Earth sumptuous spectacle interest is the formation of a volcano, to the first visible sign of the birth of an ocean. Without a doubt, the territory of Djibouti, where erosion has had little time making this a unique geology book that reads open.
Other volcanoes also meet all over the country, the best known are those between the Goubet and Lake Assal. Volcanoes, fumaroles, hot springs abound in this country consist of a series of closed basins collapsed vast plains surrounded by basaltic plateaus and strings: plain Hanlé of Gagadé, Grand and Petit Bara. These plains are sometimes occupied by lakes running dry; the waters have a very high salinity (Lake Assal lake Abbe)
