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Topic: Afar Depression

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	Afar Depression - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The lowlands of the Afar Depression are dominated by heat and drought.
		The Afar Depression biome is characterized as desert scrubland.
		The Afar Depression is a plate tectonic triple junction where the spreading ridges that are forming the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden emerge on land and meet the East African Rift.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Afar_Triangle (725 words)

	Afar people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Afar (or Danakil) are an ethnic group who reside principally in the Danakil Desert in the Afar Region of Ethiopia and in Eritrea and Djibouti.
		The Afar language (Cushitic) is spoken in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, eastern Eritrea, and Djibouti, but as the Afar are traditionally nomadic herders, they may be found further afield.
		Afar are organised into clan families, and into classes -- asaimara ('reds') who are the dominant class politically, and the adoimara ('whites') who are a working class.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Afar_(ethnicity) (587 words)

	Afar - Biocrawler (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Afar is one of the nine ethnic divisions (kililoch) of Ethiopia.
		The Afar Depression, locally known as the Danakil depression, is the three-way junction where the spreading ridges that form the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden emerge on land and meet the East African Rift.
		Afar peoples live primarily in the Afar Region of Ethiopia, eastern Eritrea, and Djibouti, but as they are traditionally nomadic herders, they may be found further afield.
	www.biocrawler.com /encyclopedia/Afar (333 words)

	ASTER Image Gallery: Afar Depression
		The Afar is slowly being pulled apart at a rate of 1-2 cm per year.
		The Afar Depression and Triple Junction also mark the location of a mantle plume, a great uprising of mantle that melts to yield basalt (like Yellowstone and Hawaii).
		This image was acquired on March 7, 2002, is located near 12.2 degrees north latitude and 41.9 degrees east longitude, and covers an area of 57 x 61.7 km.
	asterweb.jpl.nasa.gov /gallery-detail.asp?name=afar (140 words)

	Displacements, strains, and rotations within the Afar depression (Djibouti) from restoration in map view
		Within the Afar depression (Djibouti) the stratiform basaltic lava flows (emplaced between 4 Ma and 1 Ma) cover the two thirds of the depression.
		Using a detailed map the southeastern part of the depression showing the fault pattern and the vertical offset on each fault (obtained from stereoparts of SPOT images), we have restored the topography in map view.
		Souriot, J. Brun, and P. Cobbold (1996), Displacements, strains, and rotations within the Afar depression (Djibouti) from restoration in map view, Tectonics, 15(5), 952–965.
	www.agu.org /pubs/crossref/1996/96TC00849.shtml (338 words)

	[No title]
		Rift segments in the Main Ethiopian rift and southern Afar show a distinct structural segmentation, with a south to north reduction in the length, width, and spacing of fault zones; rift segments in northern Afar, where extension exceeds 100%, show a magmatic segmentation.
		The objectives of remote sensing, gravity, and modelling studies of the Ethiopian plateau area are 1) to summarise morphological patterns along the length of the rift system, and; 2) to relate variations in effective elastic thickness of the lithosphere within the Ethiopian plateau region to tectonics.
		We use the wavelength dependence of the coherence between gravity and topography to estimate the flexural rigidity, or, equivalently, the effective elastic thickness (Te), of the lithosphere.
	www.agu.org /pubs/abs/jb/96JB02118/tmp.html (327 words)

	Senamirmir Project: Interview with Jon Kalb
		And of course, having lived in Ethiopia throughout the 1970s, woven throughout much of the book is the recent history of Ethiopia--the revolution, the "red terror," the liberation fronts, the invasion of Ethiopia by Somalia, the Soviet and Cuban presence, and the Eritrean war.
		Afar children commonly tend to the smaller animals and I frequently saw them sitting under trees, no doubt bored and looking for something to amuse themselves, such as making rock toys.
		My answer to this long ago was to train Afar at the university level to become part of the research effort in the Awash, because indeed the prehistoric "riches" in the Depression are more a part of their heritage than anyone else's.
	www.senamirmir.com /theme/8-2001/jk/bone_trade.html (2616 words)

	A KINEMATIC MODEL FOR AFAR DEPRESSION LITHOSPHERIC THINNING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR HOMINID EVOLUTION: AN EXERCISE IN ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		We model the thinning of the effective elastic lithosphere that accompanied extension and show the regional scale topographic development of the Afar depression was virtually complete by mid Pliocene time.
		Uninhibited Africa-Eurasia faunal exchange through Afar and Arabia (corroborated by published geologic and paleontologic data) was tectonically permissible until the time of the earliest hominids.
		With the plateau becoming less habitable due to long term late Neogene cooling, hominids that remained in the Afar Depression were forced to adapt to a much smaller range that was effectively bounded by the already well-developed NU-SOM escarpments and the newly opened Straits of Bab el Mandeb.
	gsa.confex.com /gsa/2002AM/finalprogram/abstract_43965.htm (495 words)

	Projects
		The common Afar Series Volcanics (Miocene-Pliocene) consists of mildly alkaline basalts with subordinate alkaline and peralkaline silicics (rhyolite domes and flows and ingnimbrites) while the slightly younger Danikil Group consists of conglomerate, sandstone and siltstone with intercalated submarine basalt flows and lacustrine sediments.
		Volcanic rocks from Eocene to Quaternary are present throughout the Afar Triangle and Quaternary valley fill sediments are common.
		The Afar Triangle is the focus of many internal graben features, controlled by one or another of the major structural trends, as well as large volcanic features.
	www.africaminerals.com /projects.htm (949 words)

	danakil stock images / stock images of danakil photos search (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Afar (or Danakil) homestead, Assaita, Danakil desert fringe, Ethiopia ?
		Afar camel caravan carrying salt from the Danakil depression to Mekele, Eas...
		Ethiopia, Danakil Depression, Barahile, Afar town in the desert.
	www.photographersdirect.com /stockimages/danakil.asp (591 words)

	Geological, Paleontological, and Archaeological Research
		The Main Ethiopian, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea Rifts meet at a triple junction in the Afar depression where a proto-oceanic crust is developing by rifting and drifting of the Arabian, Somalian, and the African continental blocks (Fig.
		The Afar Rift forms a triangular depression that is characterized by widespread horst and graben structures and along-axis segmentation with variable intensity of tectonic activity and volcanic eruption that decrease toward the Main Ethiopian Rift.
		Unlike the central Afar rift floor, the southern part is dominated by late Miocene to Quaternary lacustrine and fluvial sedimentary rocks with recent volcanic and tectonic activities confined to a narrow axial zone which is marked by basaltic lava fields, fissures, nested cinder cones, silicic centers, horsts and grabens.
	www-geo.lanl.gov /programs/gidayarch.html (1123 words)

	Paranthropus
		They proposed Ardipithecus (from "ardi", which means "ground" or "floor" in the Afar language) to be the genus [White, et al, 1995].
		These specimens were retrieved from a cluster of localities West of the Awash River, within the Afar Depression, Aramis, Ethiopia.
		Hominid and associated fossil faunas, including wood, seed and vertebrate specimens, were found entirely within a single interval overlying the basal Gaala Tuff complex, and beneath the Daam Aatu Basaltic Tuff (these volcanic strata have produced dates of 4.389 and 4.388 million years, respectively) [Renne, et al, 1999].
	www.archaeologyinfo.com /paranthropus.htm (723 words)

	The Truth About Adi Murug (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		The area occupied by these four villages is like an oasis at the foot of the highlands and foothills, irrigated for farming with the waters of a large Wadi [a seasonal river] that arises in the highlands to the southwest, locally known as Wadi Kabuia.
		ANLF and Gugma were forces of the Afar independence movement, which seeks to unite all the Afar lands including those in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea up to Massawa.
		Basic Afar unity, it may be understood, was particularly threatened by Eritrean independence and EPLF suppression of ethnic national identities.
	home.swipnet.se /Ew-26522/Home/What_s_New/The_Truth_About_Adi_Murug_/the_truth_about_adi_murug_.htm (2154 words)

	Senamirmir Project: Interview Jon Kalb
		Jon Kalb: I had read about the Afar Depression, or Afar Triangle as it is also called, in graduate school, and before that Alan Moorehead's book about the exploration of the Blue Nile.
		I was specifically interested in the unique geology of the Afar, formed by the intersection of three rift valleys, that included the Awash Valley.
		But after living in Ethiopia for awhile, and after my first couple of fieldtrips in the Afar, there was no way I would consider returning to the U.S. Ethiopia impressed me greatly--an extraordinary country with a remarkable history and culture, and of course the potential of the Afar to science was unlimited.
	www.senamirmir.com /interviews/theme/8-2001/jk/cup.html (1036 words)

	Scientists observe rare continental rift process in Ethiopia
		The series of quakes was first recorded at the AAU on September 14 in Da'ure, an area in the lowlands of the Western Ethiopia Escarpment that stretches from the central part of the country to the Dahlak Islands of Eritrea in the Red Sea.
		The government asked experts in the field at the AAU to investigate the phenomena in the Afar region, and if need be ask for assistance from universities abroad, which is where the British scientist got involved.
		Atalay said there were no immediate concerns about the Afar region, noting that it would take a couple of million years before the area turns into an ocean basin.
	science.monstersandcritics.com /features/printer_1071386.php (502 words)

	Millennium Ark: Hot News
		Scientists from Ethiopia and Britain made four expeditions to the Da'ure locality in the Afar Depression between mid-September and early October to collect geophysical and geological data, said Atalay Ayele of the Geophysical Observatory of the Addis Ababa University (AAU).
		It started with a series of quakes that were first recorded Sep 14 in Da'ure, an area in the lowlands of western Ethiopia that stretches from the central part of the country to the Dahlak Islands of Eritrea in the Red Sea.
		For scientists researching the phenomena, the Afar region is a natural laboratory where the transition between oceanic rift and continental rift is visible on land.
	www.millennium-ark.net /NEWS/05_Earth_Changes/051229.Ethiopia.split.html (528 words)

	Seed: Oceanfront Property in the Desert
		A fissure in Ethiopia’s Afar Desert may be the beginnings of a new ocean basin.
		Twenty-five kilometers from the nearest road in the Afar Desert in northeastern Ethiopia, geologists on camel-back are converging on a 60-kilometer fissure in the ground.
		The depression is formed by a triple junction of tectonic plates and is one of two places on Earth where a mid-ocean ridge can be found on land.
	www.seedmagazine.com /news/2005/12/oceanfront_property_in_the_des.php?page=all (609 words)

	EO Newsroom: New Images - Afar Depression, Ethiopia
		In eastern Africa, in the Afar region of Ethiopia, a nearly barren rockscape marks the location of the meeting place of three separate pieces of the Earth’s crust.
		This meeting place is known to geologists as the Afar Triple Junction; the central meeting place for the three pieces of Earth’s crust is around Lake Abbe, just to the south of the area shown in this image from the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite.
		Besides its unusual geology, the Afar region is famous for its fossils.
	earthobservatory.nasa.gov /Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17023 (339 words)

	[No title]
		EAGLE was designed to examine crust and mantle processes occurring beneath the NMER and southern Afar, imaging 3D variations in crustal thickness and upper mantle structure, and characterizing the distribution of strain and magmatism across a typical transitional rift segment.
		At depths of >100km, north of 8.5oN this low-velocity zone broadens as the rift evolves towards the oceanic spreading centre in Afar, and appears to be connected to the deeper low-velocity structure.
		Assuming the width of the extended zone is ~100km as derived from the thinned upper crust across the rift, an overall stretching factor of 1.3 would imply that the amount of extension prior to the migration of deformation at ~3.2Ma towards the centre of the NMER was ~10km.
	www.le.ac.uk /geology/pkm/Transfer/MAGUIRE/MAGUIRE_Final.doc (7831 words)

	GEO_PLATE_T-36.HTML (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Deformation within the Afar Triangle (Plate V-21) tends to be greatest adjacent to the margins of the rift (marked by bold scarps).
		On its east side, the Afar Triangle is separated from the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden by the Danakil and Aysha horsts, strongly deformed blocks of Precambrian and Mesozoic rocks now largely covered by Afar volcanic rocks.
		Figure T-36.3, a Landsat image of the Danakil Depression northwest of Djibouti, shows details of the complex pattern of recent volcanic flows (fl), salt deposits in depressions (white), and large numbers of small normal faults.
	disc.gsfc.nasa.gov /geomorphology/GEO_2/GEO_PLATE_T-36.HTML (786 words)

	Texas Monthly January 2001: Adventures in the Bone Trade: The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia's Afar ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		The author, a geologist and founding member of the team that discovered "Lucy" in Ethiopia's Afar Depression, describes the field conditions and camp intrigues during the field season that preceded the discovery of the three-million-year-old human skeleton by Don Johanson in late 1974.
		Kalb, then a resident of the country, led explorations in the fossil-rich Awash Valley until he was expelled from the country by the Mengistu regime in mid-1978, accompanying allegations that he spied for the CIA.
		As a means of ensuring that his Afar patients would return to the clinic for follow-up treatments or medicine when needed, he required that the men leave their rifles or spears at the clinic as a reminder.
	www.texasmonthly.com /mag/issues/2001-01-01/book_excerpt2.php (6682 words)

	TourEthiopia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		In Ethiopia, it finds expression in the presence of hot springs in many parts of the country, as well as volcanic cones in the Danakil Depression in the north-east.
		Mined by the Afar people for at last a millennium and a half the salt is loaded on camel, and taken to the highlands, where it is still in considerable demand and fetches a good price.
		As a total contrast, the Bale Mountains, with their vast moorlands, their lower reaches covered with St. John's wort, their extensive heath, their virgin woodlands, their pristine mountain streams and their alpine climate, ate a beautiful world all of their own set in the southern highlands of Ethiopia, 425 kilometers from Addis Ababa.
	www.tourethiopia.com /places/rift_valley.htm (457 words)

	Shuttle images of ETHIOPIA
		AFAR TRIANGLE: • • • • • •
		AFAR DEPR.: • • • • • • • • • • • •
		AFAR DEPR: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
	rove.to /ethiopia (1156 words)

	Human Ancestors Hall: AL 200-1 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		The Afar Depression of Ethiopia has provided the majority of fossils of the early human species Australopithecus afarensis.
		Locality 200 in the Afar provided the undistorted palate to the right, with a complete dentition.
		The protruding, or prognathic, lower portion of the face, which sticks out beyond the nose and eyes, is a similarity to the apes.
	www.mnh.si.edu /anthro/humanorigins/ha/al200.htm (169 words)

	NPR : Want a New Ocean? Wait a Few Minutes
		The Afar Triangle is at the juncture of three rift valleys: the Red Sea, Aden, and African rift cracks in the earth’s crust.
		These three large pieces of the earth’s crust (Identified as the African, Arabian, and Somalian Plates) are slowly spreading apart from one another and, in the wake of their movement, are leaving behind a sinking depression in the crust of the earth, a depression identified as the Afar Triangle or Depression.
		At one time it was merely a structural weakness in the crust of the earth where converging intersections of faults were made at angles which approached the perpendicular.
	www.npr.org /templates/story/story.php?storyId=5281877&ft=1&f=5251026 (620 words)

	Cornell Middle East and North Africa Project: ethi_1 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-07)
		Vol 1 pag 89-107 TITLE = Deep seismic soundings in the Afar region and on the highland of Ethiopia Although quite conventional in principle, the actual field observations were rather unconventional due to the extreme and adverse environmental conditions, in particular in north Afar.
		Seismic measurements were made along 5 profiles 120-300 km long in different parts of the Afar Depression and, for reference, at a profile on the Ethiopian Plateau.
		Seismic pulses were generated by explosions at both ends of the line, preferably in lakes or rivers with charges ranging from 300 to 1600 kp.
	atlas.geo.cornell.edu /htmls/fin2/ethi_1.html (232 words)

	[No title]
		Both the amount of crustal thinning and the mafic composition of the crust as shown by the observed Vp/Vs suggest that the magma-assisted rifting hypothesis is an appropriate model for this transitional rift.
		The transition is marked at the surface by increased magmatism and the transfer of extensional strain accommodation from Mid-Miocene border faults to magma intrusion within ~20 km wide Quaternary magmatic segments near the centre of the rift (Wolfenden et al 2004).
		An increase in volume of magmatism and decrease in depth of intrusions along the rift northwards to Afar is suggested from shear-wave splitting results (Ayele et al 2004; Kendall et al, 2005), seismic tomography (Bastow et al 2005) and geological considerations (Ebinger & Casey 2001).
	www.le.ac.uk /geology/pkm/Transfer/STUART/Stuart_final.doc (5754 words)

	LIP Reader 10
		Two oceanic ridges, in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, are currently propagating towards the Afar depression, as a result of the separation of Arabia and Africa.
		The rift then propagated WSW through the Gulf of Aden to Afar as the result of an episodic process due mainly to complex interaction between the 3D plate geometry and the direction and intensity of regional stress.
		Finally, the Afar rifting was evaluated in light of previous work in oceanic environments by Hey, Macdonald, and Taylor, who found some striking similarities, and who emphasized the need for complementary studies.
	www.ig.utexas.edu /research/projects/lips/reader/lip.reader.10.htm (3328 words)

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