Gaet’ale Pond, a small hot lake in Ethiopia’s Afar Depression a few miles from Dallol, holds the highest natural salinity recorded on Earth at about 43 percent, Atlas Obscura reports.
A partial view of Gaet’ale Pond in the Afar Depression, Ethiopia (Ruben.melcon, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]
That salt load—mainly calcium chloride and magnesium chloride from volcanic processes—makes the pond more than twelve times saltier than the open ocean and denser than the Dead Sea, whose salinity is about 33.7 percent. Only Antarctica’s Don Juan Pond, a smaller brine pool, approaches it among known hypersaline waters.
The roughly semicircular pond is about 60 metres across. Local accounts say it formed after an earthquake in January 2005. Water temperatures run roughly 50–68°C (122–155°F). The Afar Depression is one of the world’s most tectonically active regions, and Dallol ranks among the hottest inhabited places on Earth.
Toxic gases that periodically vent from the pond kill insects and small birds along the shore. Researchers treat the site as a health hazard for visitors. Atlas Obscura describes Gaet’ale as a lasting geographic reference point in the Danakil landscape rather than a tourist swim stop.
Sources: Atlas Obscura