Qualla: Afar Triangle https://qualla.com/afar-triangle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/j/1/afar-triangle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Afar Triangle https://qualla.com/afar-triangle Afar Triangle: Introduction https://qualla.com/afar-triangle/ Photo credit Mikenorton, CC BY-SA 4.0. Lucy walked here. More precisely, she walked near the Awash River, in what is now the Afar Region of Ethiopia, about 3.2 million years before any paleoanthropologist named her. When her fossilized skeleton was found in 1974 at a place called Hadar, she was the most complete early human ancestor ever recovered, and she made a strong case that our lineage started upright in the Rift Valley. Two decades later, just up the river at a site called Aramis, Tim White and his team found something older still - Ardi, Ardipithecus ramidus, 4.4 million years old, a female who represents one of the earliest known stages of the human family tree. Both fossils came out of the same geological oddity: the Afar Triangle, the place where a continent is coming apart.

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Image: Mikenorton | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/j/1/afar-triangle-wp/sfj1-afar-triangle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Afar Triangle: A Continent Breaking https://qualla.com/afar-triangle/ Photo credit NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, Public domain. Three tectonic plates meet in the Afar region, and none of them want to stay put. The Arabian plate is drifting north-eastward at roughly 20 millimeters per year, pulling away from Africa. The Somali plate is sliding east, more slowly - about 5 millimeters per year - relative to ...

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Image: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team | Public domain

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/j/1/afar-triangle-wp/sfj1-afar-triangle-a-continent-breaking.mp3 0:06 2 full Afar Triangle: Hottest on Earth https://qualla.com/afar-triangle/ Photo credit Val Rime, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dallol, in the northern Afar Depression, holds the record for the hottest year-round average temperature of any inhabited place on Earth. Observations from 1960 to 1966 recorded daily mean temperatures ranging from 30°C in January to 39°C in July. Rain falls in millimeters per ye...

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Image: Val Rime | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/j/1/afar-triangle-wp/sfj1-afar-triangle-hottest-on-earth.mp3 0:06 3 full Afar Triangle: The Cradle https://qualla.com/afar-triangle/ Photo credit Val Rime, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Afar Triangle contains what some paleontologists consider the most important fossil beds for human evolution on Earth. The Middle Awash region alone has yielded Ardi, Lucy, the fossilized Australopithecus child named Selam from Dikika, the Gawis cranium from Gona, and some of...

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Image: Val Rime | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/j/1/afar-triangle-wp/sfj1-afar-triangle-the-cradle.mp3 0:06 4 full Afar Triangle: Life in the Depression https://qualla.com/afar-triangle/ Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. The Afar biome is harsh desert scrubland, and the wildlife has adapted accordingly. Grévy's zebras still roam here. Soemmerring's gazelles and beisa oryx survive in the drier zones. Most remarkably, the Afar Triangle contains the last viable population of the African wild ass, Eq...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/j/1/afar-triangle-wp/sfj1-afar-triangle-life-in-the-depression.mp3 0:06 5 full Afar Triangle: The Ocean to Come https://qualla.com/afar-triangle/ Photo credit CC BY 2.0. In 2005, a swarm of earthquakes and volcanic activity hit the Dabbahu volcanic complex in central Afar. Over just two weeks, the ground opened in a rift segment sixty kilometers long; up to eight meters of extension occurred, and 2.5 cubic kilometers of lava intruded the crust. M...

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Image: CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/f/j/1/afar-triangle-wp/sfj1-afar-triangle-the-ocean-to-come.mp3 0:06 6 full