The Danakil (Dallol) depression is one of the hottest, most inhospitable places on Earth. Much of this vast and practically unpopulated region lies below sea level, dipping to a frazzled nadir of -116m at Dallol, near Lake Asale, the lowest spot of terra firma on the African continent. One of the driest and most tectonically active areas on the planet, the Danakil is an area of singular geological fascination: a strange lunar landscape studded with active volcanoes, malodorous sulphur –caked hot springs, solidified black lava flows and vast salt-encrusted basins.
The Danakil is effectively a southerly terrestrial extension of the rifting process that formed the Red Sea, set a juncture of the African, Arabian and Somali tectonic plates, and it low lying surface was once fully submerged bas alien water. Relics of those distant days include lakes Asale and Afrera. Both of which lie at the center of an ancient salt-extraction industry

It is some measure of the Danakil’s geological activity that more than 30 active or dormant volcanoes- roughly one-quarter of the African total as listed by the Smithsonian Institute Global Volcanism Program- are shared between its north to northwesterly direction, these volcanoes are all geological infants, having formed over the past million years, and a great many took their present shape within the last 10,000 years.

The most substantial range is the so-called Danakil Alps, also known as the Danakil Block or Danakil Horst, whose highest peak, the 2219m Mount Nabro, lies within Eritrea some 8 km northeast of Mallahle (1875m) on the Ethiopian Border.
In June 2011, Mount Nabro erupted violently killing people and causing major disruptions to air traffic. Other notable volcanoes include the spectacular peaks of Borale ( 812m ) and Afrera ( 1295m), both of which rise in magnificent isolation from the sunken (-103m) shoreline of Lake Afrera and the more westerly alayita, a vast massif the rises to 1501m and last erupted in 1901 and 1915.