Erta Ale is a continuously active basaltic shield volcano in the Afar Region of northeastern Ethiopia, which is itself part of the wider Afar Triangle. Erta Ale is located in the Danakil Depression, an area below sea level between the last two countries, and is the most active volcano in Ethiopia.
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We spent three days here and stayed in the huts on the rim of the caldera.
During our stay we had three types of weather conditions that affected us. First of all, the most common one was when there is a breeze that goes North, slightly towards the North West.
It means the volcanic fumes are blowing away from the camp and the main viewing area on the South side of the active crater.
As the volcano is currently degassing, most of the time, all you see is a crater totally filled with "smoke" and at night the occasional faint glow.
On our second day, just before sunset, we got lucky when the weather changed temporarily and the column of fumes went straight up. This meant that thanks to the heat convections, we finally could see part of the crater floor and observe two active fumeroles. NO LAVA LAKE!
This window of opportunity only lasted for about an hour, before the crater was totally filled with "smoke" again, creating an horizontal plume from the summit of the volcano.
On the third day, we experienced the apparently rare situation where the wind blew towards the South West. The camp with huts was getting a full load of volcanic fumes, making it necessary to use our gass masks in the camp as well. This was not fun and we decided to leave earlier than planned.
We realized that we got very, very lucky on our second day and accepted there was nothing more to see.
As we spent a lot of time on the mountain, we had time to walk around the caldera and visit other craters. The various fissures, hornitos and other lava formations, made our visit to Erta Ale as a volcano experience more worthwhile.
After all, there are easier places in the world to see active fumeroles, since getting here and staying here was not without some level of hardship.
Sadly, the plastic bottle pollution and unhygienic conditions around the camp gave me a bitter taste about the unsustainable tourism on the mountain. They are already expanding the camp, in preparation for the new road, that will bring many more visitors. I hate to think what it will be like in the future, if these issues are not...
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Erta Ale is one of the few volcanoes on the world that have an almost persistent lava lake. It is an isolated basaltic shield volcano, 50 km wide, rising more than 600 m from below sea level in the barren Danakil depression. The volcano contains a 0.7 x 1.6 km elliptical summit crater with several steep-sided pit craters, one of them containing a lava lake. Another larger 1.8 x 3.1 km wide depression, elongated parallel to the trend of the Erta Ale range is located to the SE of the summit and is bounded by curvilinear fault scarps on the SE side. Fresh-looking basaltic lava flows from these fissures have poured into the caldera and locally overflowed its rim. The summit caldera is renowned for one, or sometimes two long-term lava lakes that have been active since at least 1967, or possibly since 1906. Recent fissure eruptions have occurred on the northern flank of Erta Ale. Erta Ale has undergone seven eruption events in the past 125 years. Three of the early eruption dates, 1873, 1903, and 1904 are uncertain. However, 1906, 1940, 1960, and 1967 are well established events. Erta Ale has been erupting continuously since 1967. Generally the...
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September 2021-April 2022
Ethiopia's Erta Ale basaltic shield volcano has had at least one active lava lake since the mid-1960s, and possibly much earlier. Two active craters (north and south pits) within the larger oval-shaped summit caldera have exhibited periodic lava fountaining and lava lake overflows for many years. During January 2017-March 2020 a vent at the southeast caldera, a few kilometers SE of the summit caldera, produced lava flows that extended many kilometers from the main vents. Since March 2020 pulses of activity from both pit craters in the summit caldera have been recorded in numerous satellite thermal images. This report covers activity from September 2021-April 2022 when both the north and south pits were intermittently active. Information comes primarily from satellite imagery and thermal data, although reports and photographs from ground-based expeditions that periodically visit the site are...
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