Qualla: Lake Abbe https://qualla.com/lake-abbe 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/c/v/x/lake-abbe-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lake Abbe https://qualla.com/lake-abbe Lake Abbe: Introduction https://qualla.com/lake-abbe/ Photo credit Jbcombes, CC BY-SA 3.0. Fifty-meter limestone chimneys rise from a flat expanse of salt, venting steam into air so hot and dry it seems to evaporate before it climbs. The landscape looks like it belongs on another planet — so much so that Djiboutian tour guides have long claimed the shores of Lake Abbe stood in for the alien world in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes. That story is a myth; the film was shot in Arizona and California. But the myth's persistence speaks to something real about this place. The geology here is not fiction. Lake Abbe sits at the Afar Triple Junction, the single point where three tectonic plates, the African, Arabian, and Somali, are pulling away from each other. The continent is splitting apart beneath your feet. Everything about this place, the chimneys, the salt flats, the boiling springs, the shrinking lake, is a consequence of that slow, relentless tearing.

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Image: Jbcombes | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/c/v/x/lake-abbe-wp/scvx-lake-abbe-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lake Abbe: Where the Earth Comes Apart https://qualla.com/lake-abbe/ Photo credit Rolf Cosar, CC BY 3.0. The Afar Triple Junction is one of the few places on the planet where a continental rift can be observed above sea level. Three pieces of Earth's crust are separating here, though not all at the same speed, and the result is the Afar Depression, a geological wound that has been w...

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Image: Rolf Cosar | CC BY 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/c/v/x/lake-abbe-wp/scvx-lake-abbe-where-the-earth-comes-apart.mp3 0:06 2 full Lake Abbe: The Chimneys https://qualla.com/lake-abbe/ Photo credit jbcombes, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lake Abbe's most striking features are its carbonate chimneys, towering columns of limestone that reach heights of 50 meters and vent geothermal steam from their tops. They form where lake water mixes with deeper geothermal fluid, precipitating calcium carbonate into structures t...

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Image: jbcombes | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/c/v/x/lake-abbe-wp/scvx-lake-abbe-the-chimneys.mp3 0:06 3 full Lake Abbe: A Lake That Is Disappearing https://qualla.com/lake-abbe/ Photo credit Carport, CC BY-SA 3.0. Lake Abbe is shrinking. By 1984, its surface area had decreased to two-thirds of what it was in 1940. During that period, roughly 11,500 hectares of new salt flats formed to the southwest. The causes are both climatic and human. Recurring droughts have reduced inflow, but the mor...

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Image: Carport | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/c/v/x/lake-abbe-wp/scvx-lake-abbe-a-lake-that-is-disappearing.mp3 0:06 4 full Lake Abbe: The People of the Furnace https://qualla.com/lake-abbe/ Photo credit Jbcombes, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Afar people have maintained a settlement near Lake Abbe's shore, living in one of the most extreme environments inhabited anywhere on the planet. The Afar are pastoralists and salt traders who have adapted to the Depression's brutal heat over centuries. Their presence here is...

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Image: Jbcombes | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/c/v/x/lake-abbe-wp/scvx-lake-abbe-the-people-of-the-furnace.mp3 0:06 5 full