Andinia.com - Product Review: Backcountry Store

Backcountry Store - Summer Clothing

Summer clothing for outdoor activities, available at Backcountry Store.

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But if you are wondering why you would need summer clothes, consider this: There is something worse than deserts as we know them, with the occasional oasis and a lot of sand dunes. What may be worse than that? You may ask, and the answer is: dry lakes and seas.

Dry lakes abound on Earth, and there are a few fine examples in the United States, in Argentina and Chile, but perhaps the most intriguing one is located in the depression of Danakil, in northeastern Ethiopia.

This area is the lowest of Africa, located at about 155 metres below sea level.First of all, you should know that according to geology, when seas retreat or a lake dries up, generally leaves sedimentary deposits located at what was the bottom of the vanished waters.Of the, these deposits contain a lot of salt and minerals, and the subsequent climatic changes in the area only serve to invigorate the vicious circle of soil dehydration, until nothing is left.

In these areas, very few plants and animals can survive, but due to the rich mineral deposits, mining takes place in extreme hardship, particularly in the Danakil area where salt is extracted and shipped by truck or camel to Addis Abeba.

The Danakil region was discovered by Count Samule Teliki, working for the Austro - Hungarian government then.The site is totally inhospitable but sports a spectacular panorama. Count Teliki continued to explore the region and discovered other rare valleys and geological formations.

At this point it is perhaps in order to add that geologists know that the African continent is actually fracturing along a line that goes over these depressions, down to Lake Victoria., Lake Tanganika and Lake Zambezi; then, the continental crust is breaking up down to the southern side of the Zambezi River.

This means that in approximately 50 million years, Africa will be divided in two parts, and a new ocean will be born in the middle (the African Ocean?). Near the Danakil area, Count Tekeli found the Suguta Valley, a very inaccessible place which was formed after volcanoes cut it off from Lake Turkana, leaving inside only a highly saline residual lake called Logipi, which is almost exclusively used nowadays as a retreat and safe haven for all sorts of bandits.