Cite this Report
Phreatic eruption in 1st week of January 2011
The Dallol volcano has not been the subject of any previous Bulletin reports; however, the hydrothermal features include diverse brightly colored hot springs that are both dramatic and intriguing. An explosive event at Dallol was noted by observers in January 2011. This report was given to us by Tadiwos Chernet.
Dallol is located in the Danakil Depression in the northern part of the Afar triangle of Ethiopia. The volcano is on the NNW trending Erta Ale axial, a rift segment that hosts a number of active volcanoes, including Erta Ale, itself the host of a perennial lava lake. The elliptical Dallol (figure 1), which rises gently to 60 m above the salt plain (48 m below sea level), has a summit crater (about 100 m diameter) that experienced a phreatic eruption in 1926.
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Figure 1. Dallol with salt pools and deposits in the foreground. Photograher uncertain but this photo was apparently online since 2011. Bulletin editors found it on multiple websites including Vieweird.com. |
Nearby residents of Almeda observed unusual dark colored smoke from the Dallol crater in the first week of January 2011. The event, which was not strong enough to be recorded by satellite remote sensing, left dark-gray ash and sulfur deposits at Dallol hot springs, suggesting degassing from depth. This process was not unexpected given that the region contains many craters, and the Dallol crater, formed in 1926, was the result of a phreatic eruption. Previous phreatic eruptions at Dallol and the surrounding salt plain have left behind bubbling acid brine pools best explained by a number of active maar craters. Those craters are obscured by the thick evaporite succession and frequent marine invasions of the salt plain during the Holocene.
Evaporites and Geothermal reservoir. According to Chernet, an adjacent salt-crusted depression that lies 120 m below sea level was linked to the Gulf of Zula on the Red Sea in the Pleistocene by the narrow extensional Alid graben to the N. The Alid graben is floored by fissure basalts and the active Alid and Jallua rhyolitic volcanoes. An evaporite succession in the sedimentary basin is mostly bedded halite, but includes minor inter-beds of clay shale, gypsum, anhydrite, and a thick bed of potash. Citing Barberi et al. (1972), Chernet indicated that the deposits, over 1,000 m thick, have continued for 200,000-25,000 years and attest to a number of marine ingressions into the depression which have left behind a number of brine lakes.
At Dallol, a salt dome rises as a notable topographic and geologic feature (figure 1). On the salt dome, several springs with boiling, supersaturated, and extremely acidic waters are discharging on salt cones.
Citing Varet (2010), Chernet stated that geothermal reservoirs, which reside below the evaporite succession, evidently recharge from precipitation on the NW plateau. This suggests the potential for a renewable geothermal energy supply in the area.
 |
Figure 2. (a & b) Two, 3-dimensional representations of the Dallol dome and the subsurface spring sources venting at the surface to feed surface evaporites. Courtesy of Research and Development Center, (Ministry of Mines, P.O. Box 486, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). Courtesy of Carniel and others (2010), citing a personal communications from M. Rivas (2006). |
The salt cones are tall, brilliantly colored mounds of salt with intervening pools of yellow, orange and blue-green brine. These colors may result from oxidation state of species in solution, such as ferrous chloride to ferric chloride.
Dallol waters are characterized by very high total dissolved solids (up to 525 g/kg). The waters can be grouped into three chemical suites, all of which contain high levels of chloride. Two representative water samples were collected and analyzed. One of the samples was from a hot springs with a 110C temperature that solidified shortly after collection, indicating salt supersaturation. An X-ray diffraction pattern of the solidified product showed the presence of bishofite (MgCl2*6H2O). The other was a brine water of pH 0.2. The chemical composition of the samples was that of concentrated sea water.
According to Chernet, X-ray diffraction of samples from hydrothermal deposits within the crater shows that the major constitutents of most samples are halite, sulfur, calcite,. sodalite, and hematite, with minor levels of silica. Metallic oxides and potassium and/or fluorine impurities have given the sites a brown, yellow, or bluish color.
Chernet noted that frequent earthquakes of magnitude 4.5-5.5 occur in the vicinity of Dallol, as reflected by cracks healed with later salt deposits and a number of phreatic eruptions.
References. Barberi, F., Borsi, S., Ferrara, G., Marinelli, G.; Santacroce, R.; Tazieff, H., Varet, J., 1972, Evolution of the Danakil depression (Afar, Ethiopia) in light of radiometric age determinations, The Journal of Geology, v. 80, iss. 6, p. 720-729.
Carniel, R., Muñoz Jolis, E., Jones, J., 2010, A geophysical multi-parametric analysis of hydrothermal activity at Dallol, Ethiopia, Journal of African Earth Sciences, vol. 58, p. 812-819. (Article cited personal communications from M. Rivas, 2006).
Chernet, T., Dallol Volcano and Danakil Depression: Earth Resources and Geo-hazards, 2012, Magmatic Rifting and Active Volcanism Conference, 11-13 January 2012, (Session 3), Afar Rift Consortium, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/afar/new-afar/conference/talks.html).
Darraha, T.H., Tedesco, D., Tassid, F., Vasellid, O., Cuocob, E., Poredaf, RJ, 2013, Gas chemistry of the Dallol region of the Danakil Depression in the Afar region of the northern-most East African Rift, Chemical Geology, vol. 339, p. 16-29.
Nobile, A., C. Pagli, Keir, D., Wright, T. J., Ayele, A., Ruch, J., and Acocella, V., 2012, Dike-fault interaction during the 2004 Dallol intrusion at the northern edge of the Erta Ale Ridge (Afar, Ethiopia), Geophys. Res. Lett., v. 39, L19305.
Varet, J., 2010, Contribution to Favorable Geothermal Site Selection In the Afar Triangle, ARGEO-C3, Third East African Rift Geothermal Conference, Djibouti, 22-25 November 2010, p. 139-154.
Information Contacts: Tadiwos Chernet, Research and Development Directorate, Ministry of Mines, P.O.Box 486, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The Global Volcanism Program has no Weekly Reports available for Dallol.
Reports are organized chronologically and indexed below by Month/Year (Publication Volume:Number), and include a one-line summary. Click on the index link or scroll down to read the reports.
Cite this Report
Phreatic eruption in 1st week of January 2011
The Dallol volcano has not been the subject of any previous Bulletin reports; however, the hydrothermal features include diverse brightly colored hot springs that are both dramatic and intriguing. An explosive event at Dallol was noted by observers in January 2011. This report was given to us by Tadiwos Chernet.
Dallol is located in the Danakil Depression in the northern part of the Afar triangle of Ethiopia. The volcano is on the NNW trending Erta Ale axial, a rift segment that hosts a number of active volcanoes, including Erta Ale, itself the host of a perennial lava lake. The elliptical Dallol (figure 1), which rises gently to 60 m above the salt plain (48 m below sea level), has a summit crater (about 100 m diameter) that experienced a phreatic eruption in 1926.
|
Figure 1. Dallol with salt pools and deposits in the foreground. Photograher uncertain but this photo was apparently online since 2011. Bulletin editors found it on multiple websites including Vieweird.com. |
Nearby residents of Almeda observed unusual dark colored smoke from the Dallol crater in the first week of January 2011. The event, which was not strong enough to be recorded by satellite remote sensing, left dark-gray ash and sulfur deposits at Dallol hot springs, suggesting degassing from depth. This process was not unexpected given that the region contains many craters, and the Dallol crater, formed in 1926, was the result of a phreatic eruption. Previous phreatic eruptions at Dallol and the surrounding salt plain have left behind bubbling acid brine pools best explained by a number of active maar craters. Those craters are obscured by the thick evaporite succession and frequent marine invasions of the salt plain during the Holocene.
Evaporites and Geothermal reservoir. According to Chernet, an adjacent salt-crusted depression that lies 120 m below sea level was linked to the Gulf of Zula on the Red Sea in the Pleistocene by the narrow extensional Alid graben to the N. The Alid graben is floored by fissure basalts and the active Alid and Jallua rhyolitic volcanoes. An evaporite succession in the sedimentary basin is mostly bedded halite, but includes minor inter-beds of clay shale, gypsum, anhydrite, and a thick bed of potash. Citing Barberi et al. (1972), Chernet indicated that the deposits, over 1,000 m thick, have continued for 200,000-25,000 years and attest to a number of marine ingressions into the depression which have left behind a number of brine lakes.
At Dallol, a salt dome rises as a notable topographic and geologic feature (figure 1). On the salt dome, several springs with boiling, supersaturated, and extremely acidic waters are discharging on salt cones.
Citing Varet (2010), Chernet stated that geothermal reservoirs, which reside below the evaporite succession, evidently recharge from precipitation on the NW plateau. This suggests the potential for a renewable geothermal energy supply in the area.
|
Figure 2. (a & b) Two, 3-dimensional representations of the Dallol dome and the subsurface spring sources venting at the surface to feed surface evaporites. Courtesy of Research and Development Center, (Ministry of Mines, P.O. Box 486, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). Courtesy of Carniel and others (2010), citing a personal communications from M. Rivas (2006). |
The salt cones are tall, brilliantly colored mounds of salt with intervening pools of yellow, orange and blue-green brine. These colors may result from oxidation state of species in solution, such as ferrous chloride to ferric chloride.
Dallol waters are characterized by very high total dissolved solids (up to 525 g/kg). The waters can be grouped into three chemical suites, all of which contain high levels of chloride. Two representative water samples were collected and analyzed. One of the samples was from a hot springs with a 110C temperature that solidified shortly after collection, indicating salt supersaturation. An X-ray diffraction pattern of the solidified product showed the presence of bishofite (MgCl2*6H2O). The other was a brine water of pH 0.2. The chemical composition of the samples was that of concentrated sea water.
According to Chernet, X-ray diffraction of samples from hydrothermal deposits within the crater shows that the major constitutents of most samples are halite, sulfur, calcite,. sodalite, and hematite, with minor levels of silica. Metallic oxides and potassium and/or fluorine impurities have given the sites a brown, yellow, or bluish color.
Chernet noted that frequent earthquakes of magnitude 4.5-5.5 occur in the vicinity of Dallol, as reflected by cracks healed with later salt deposits and a number of phreatic eruptions.
References. Barberi, F., Borsi, S., Ferrara, G., Marinelli, G.; Santacroce, R.; Tazieff, H., Varet, J., 1972, Evolution of the Danakil depression (Afar, Ethiopia) in light of radiometric age determinations, The Journal of Geology, v. 80, iss. 6, p. 720-729.
Carniel, R., Muñoz Jolis, E., Jones, J., 2010, A geophysical multi-parametric analysis of hydrothermal activity at Dallol, Ethiopia, Journal of African Earth Sciences, vol. 58, p. 812-819. (Article cited personal communications from M. Rivas, 2006).
Chernet, T., Dallol Volcano and Danakil Depression: Earth Resources and Geo-hazards, 2012, Magmatic Rifting and Active Volcanism Conference, 11-13 January 2012, (Session 3), Afar Rift Consortium, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/afar/new-afar/conference/talks.html).
Darraha, T.H., Tedesco, D., Tassid, F., Vasellid, O., Cuocob, E., Poredaf, RJ, 2013, Gas chemistry of the Dallol region of the Danakil Depression in the Afar region of the northern-most East African Rift, Chemical Geology, vol. 339, p. 16-29.
Nobile, A., C. Pagli, Keir, D., Wright, T. J., Ayele, A., Ruch, J., and Acocella, V., 2012, Dike-fault interaction during the 2004 Dallol intrusion at the northern edge of the Erta Ale Ridge (Afar, Ethiopia), Geophys. Res. Lett., v. 39, L19305.
Varet, J., 2010, Contribution to Favorable Geothermal Site Selection In the Afar Triangle, ARGEO-C3, Third East African Rift Geothermal Conference, Djibouti, 22-25 November 2010, p. 139-154.
Information Contacts: Tadiwos Chernet, Research and Development Directorate, Ministry of Mines, P.O.Box 486, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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There is data available for 2 confirmed Holocene eruptive periods.
2011 Jan 4 ± 3 days - 2011 Jan 4 ± 3 days Confirmed Eruption (Explosive / Effusive) VEI: 0
| Episode 1 | Eruption (Explosive / Effusive) | Dallol crater | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 Jan 4 ± 3 days - 2011 Jan 4 ± 3 days | Evidence from Observations: Reported | |||||||||||||||||||
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List of 2 Events for Episode 1 at Dallol crater
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1926 Confirmed Eruption (Explosive / Effusive) VEI: 1
| Episode 1 | Eruption (Explosive / Effusive) | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1926 - Unknown | Evidence from Observations: Reported | |||||||||||||||||||
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List of 2 Events for Episode 1
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The Global Volcanism Program has no synonyms or subfeatures listed for Dallol.
There are no samples for Dallol in the Smithsonian's NMNH Department of Mineral Sciences Rock and Ore collection.
| Copernicus Browser | The Copernicus Browser replaced the Sentinel Hub Playground browser in 2023, to provide access to Earth observation archives from the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem, the main distribution platform for data from the EU Copernicus missions. |
| MIROVA | Middle InfraRed Observation of Volcanic Activity (MIROVA) is a near real time volcanic hot-spot detection system based on the analysis of MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) data. In particular, MIROVA uses the Middle InfraRed Radiation (MIR), measured over target volcanoes, in order to detect, locate and measure the heat radiation sourced from volcanic activity. |
| MODVOLC Thermal Alerts | Using infrared satellite Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data, scientists at the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawai'i, developed an automated system called MODVOLC to map thermal hot-spots in near real time. For each MODIS image, the algorithm automatically scans each 1 km pixel within it to check for high-temperature hot-spots. When one is found the date, time, location, and intensity are recorded. MODIS looks at every square km of the Earth every 48 hours, once during the day and once during the night, and the presence of two MODIS sensors in space allows at least four hot-spot observations every two days. Each day updated global maps are compiled to display the locations of all hot spots detected in the previous 24 hours. There is a drop-down list with volcano names which allow users to 'zoom-in' and examine the distribution of hot-spots at a variety of spatial scales. |
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WOVOdat
Single Volcano View Temporal Evolution of Unrest Side by Side Volcanoes |
WOVOdat is a database of volcanic unrest; instrumentally and visually recorded changes in seismicity, ground deformation, gas emission, and other parameters from their normal baselines. It is sponsored by the World Organization of Volcano Observatories (WOVO) and presently hosted at the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
GVMID Data on Volcano Monitoring Infrastructure The Global Volcano Monitoring Infrastructure Database GVMID, is aimed at documenting and improving capabilities of volcano monitoring from the ground and space. GVMID should provide a snapshot and baseline view of the techniques and instrumentation that are in place at various volcanoes, which can be use by volcano observatories as reference to setup new monitoring system or improving networks at a specific volcano. These data will allow identification of what monitoring gaps exist, which can be then targeted by remote sensing infrastructure and future instrument deployments. |
| Volcanic Hazard Maps | The IAVCEI Commission on Volcanic Hazards and Risk has a Volcanic Hazard Maps database designed to serve as a resource for hazard mappers (or other interested parties) to explore how common issues in hazard map development have been addressed at different volcanoes, in different countries, for different hazards, and for different intended audiences. In addition to the comprehensive, searchable Volcanic Hazard Maps Database, this website contains information about diversity of volcanic hazard maps, illustrated using examples from the database. This site is for educational purposes related to volcanic hazard maps. Hazard maps found on this website should not be used for emergency purposes. For the most recent, official hazard map for a particular volcano, please seek out the proper institutional authorities on the matter. |
| IRIS seismic stations/networks | Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Data Services map showing the location of seismic stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 0.18° (about 20 km at mid-latitudes) from the given location of Dallol. Users can customize a variety of filters and options in the left panel. Note that if there are no stations are known the map will default to show the entire world with a "No data matched request" error notice. |
| UNAVCO GPS/GNSS stations | Geodetic Data Services map from UNAVCO showing the location of GPS/GNSS stations from all available networks (permanent or temporary) within a radius of 20 km from the given location of Dallol. Users can customize the data search based on station or network names, location, and time window. Requires Adobe Flash Player. |
| DECADE Data | The DECADE portal, still in the developmental stage, serves as an example of the proposed interoperability between The Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, the Mapping Gas Emissions (MaGa) Database, and the EarthChem Geochemical Portal. The Deep Earth Carbon Degassing (DECADE) initiative seeks to use new and established technologies to determine accurate global fluxes of volcanic CO2 to the atmosphere, but installing CO2 monitoring networks on 20 of the world's 150 most actively degassing volcanoes. The group uses related laboratory-based studies (direct gas sampling and analysis, melt inclusions) to provide new data for direct degassing of deep earth carbon to the atmosphere. |
| Large Eruptions of Dallol | Information about large Quaternary eruptions (VEI >= 4) is cataloged in the Large Magnitude Explosive Volcanic Eruptions (LaMEVE) database of the Volcano Global Risk Identification and Analysis Project (VOGRIPA). |
| EarthChem | EarthChem develops and maintains databases, software, and services that support the preservation, discovery, access and analysis of geochemical data, and facilitate their integration with the broad array of other available earth science parameters. EarthChem is operated by a joint team of disciplinary scientists, data scientists, data managers and information technology developers who are part of the NSF-funded data facility Integrated Earth Data Applications (IEDA). IEDA is a collaborative effort of EarthChem and the Marine Geoscience Data System (MGDS). |
Colorful hot brine pools up to about a meter in diameter with terraces at hot springs at Dallol. Numerous phreatic explosion craters dot the Salt Plain NNE of the Erta Ale Range in one of the lowest areas of the Danakil depression. These craters mark Earth's lowest known subaerial volcanic vents. The most recent of these craters, Dallol, lies 48 m below sea level and was formed during an eruption in 1926.