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| Dabbahu (Baba Al Asfah) Volcano | |
|---|---|
| Name | Dabbahu (Baba Al Asfah) |
| Other name | Baba Al Asfah |
| Elevation m | 1440 |
| Location | Afar Region, Ethiopia |
| Range | Afar Depression |
| Type | Fissure vent / Shield |
| Last eruption | 2005–2007 |
Dabbahu (Baba Al Asfah) Volcano
Dabbahu (Baba Al Asfah) is a fissure vent and shield-like edifice in the Afar Region of northeastern Ethiopia, situated within the Afar Depression near the border with Eritrea and Djibouti. The volcano occupies a segment of the East African Rift system and the Afar Triple Junction, and it produced a major dike intrusion and eruption in 2005 that altered regional strain patterns. Dabbahu's activity and setting have drawn study from institutions involved in plate tectonics, volcanology, and remote sensing.
Dabbahu sits in the Afar Depression, a lowland basin formed by the interaction of the Nubian Plate, the Somali Plate, and the Arabian Plate at the Afar Triple Junction, and lies close to the Danakil Depression, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Aden. Nearby geographic and political entities include the Eritrean Highlands, the Red Sea Rift, the Ethiopian Highlands, and regional towns such as Semera and Asaita; international organizations and field teams from the United States Geological Survey, the British Geological Survey, and the International Seismological Centre have worked in the area. The volcano is accessible via routes used by United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations operating in the Horn of Africa, and its landscape is characterized by basaltic lava flows, fumarolic fields, salt flats, and tectonic escarpments similar to those at Erta Ale, Nabro, and Mount Alayta.
Geologically, Dabbahu is part of the Ethiopian Rift sector of the East African Rift and exhibits features typical of continental rifting such as fissure eruptions, shield volcanism, and basaltic dyke emplacement. The edifice overlies Miocene to Holocene basalts and rhyolites mapped in regional surveys by the Geological Survey of Ethiopia and compared with stratigraphy from nearby volcanic centers including Mount El Muke, Afdera, and the Tat Ali volcanic complex. Petrologic analyses from universities and laboratories such as the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, the University of Oxford, and Addis Ababa University indicate predominantly tholeiitic and transitional basalts with mantle-derived magmas influenced by lithospheric extension documented in studies referencing the Geological Society of London and the American Geophysical Union. Geophysical work by NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has used interferometric synthetic aperture radar and seismic networks from the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology to image magma chambers and dyke propagation beneath the volcano.
In September 2005, Dabbahu produced a spectacular dike intrusion that propagated laterally for tens of kilometers, creating a rift segment that was captured by satellite missions including Landsat, Envisat, and Terra; the event prompted field campaigns supported by the Royal Society, the European Research Council, and the National Science Foundation. The intrusion was similar in mechanics to fissure events recorded at Krafla, Þingvellir, and the 1975–1984 Krafla Fires, and the 1973 Heimaey eruption, but in a continental rift setting akin to the 2011–2012 Bárðarbunga-Holuhraun sequence. Observations by teams from the University of Cambridge, the California Institute of Technology, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography documented seismic swarms, surface faulting, and effusive basaltic eruptions; the dike reduced regional Coulomb stress and altered local seismicity patterns monitored by the Global Seismographic Network and regional seismic arrays. International collaborations involving the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the World Bank assessed hazards and infrastructure risk after the event.
Hazards associated with Dabbahu include fissure eruptions, lava flows, ground rupture, seismic swarms, gas emissions (sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide), and localized ash production that can affect air traffic controlled by the International Civil Aviation Organization and regional airports. Monitoring efforts involve seismic stations deployed by the United States Geological Survey, satellite remote sensing by the European Space Agency and NASA, gas measurements by teams from the Max Planck Institute and the University of Iceland, and geodetic surveys using GPS networks supported by the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute. Warning systems and hazard maps have been developed with input from the African Union, the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, and the African Seismological Commission.
Local Afar pastoralist communities and settlements experienced displacement, disruption of grazing routes, and impacts on water resources following the 2005 intrusion; humanitarian response included assessments by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the International Organization for Migration. Regional governments, the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, and international development agencies coordinated relief and infrastructure repair, while scientific outreach was provided by institutions such as Addis Ababa University, the Natural History Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution to inform communities about volcanic risk. Cross-border concerns involved Eritrea, Djibouti, and international diplomatic attention from the African Union and donor countries during monitoring and response activities.
Scientific exploration of Dabbahu has involved collaborative projects by researchers from Addis Ababa University, the University of Oxford, the University of California, Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, producing publications in journals of the American Geophysical Union, the Geological Society of America, and Nature. Geochronological methods including argon–argon dating, uranium-series disequilibrium, and cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating applied by laboratories at the California Institute of Technology, the University of Cambridge, and ETH Zurich have constrained eruption ages from the Pleistocene to Holocene, correlating activity with regional rift evolution documented in monographs by the Royal Society and textbooks from Cambridge University Press. Ongoing research funded by agencies such as the European Research Council and the National Science Foundation continues to refine models of magma supply, crustal accretion, and rift segmentation in the Afar region.
Category:Volcanoes of Ethiopia Category:Afar Region Category:East African Rift