Ardoukoba أردوكوبا

Ardoukoba is a fissure volcano straddling the East African Rift between Lake Assal and the Gulf of Ghoubbet-el-Kharab, placing it at one of the most tectonically active junctions on Earth, where the Arabian and Somali plates are actively pulling apart. Its most recent eruption, in November 1978, was brief but left expansive lava fields of pikrobasalt and rhyolite that give the landscape a stark, extraterrestrial character. The Ardoukoba Rift is a rare site where continental drift is directly measurable year by year, making it a reference point in plate tectonics research. Experienced trekkers who reach the crater rim are rewarded with views across the world's lowest salt lake and the jagged coastline of the Red Sea.