Topography of Africa
Found from this Reddit thread. I particularly love this top comment by g1ngertim:
Three plates meet in Ethiopia at what's called the Afar Triangle. All three plate boundaries are divergent, and the boundary between the African plates forms what's sometimes called the Great Rift Valley. It will eventually become a sea that divides Africa.
This sent me to Wikipedia to read more about the Afar Triangle.
The Afar Triangle (also called the Afar Depression) is a geological depression caused by the Afar Triple Junction, which is part of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. The region has disclosed fossil specimens of the very earliest hominins; that is, the earliest of the human clade, and it is thought by some paleontologists to be the cradle of the evolution of humans. The Depression overlaps the borders of Eritrea, Djibouti and the entire Afar Region of Ethiopia; and it contains the lowest point in Africa, Lake Assal, Djibouti, at 155 m (509 ft) below sea level.
Of note, Badwater Basin in the US is the lowest point, at just 282 feet below sea level.
Fascinating stuff.
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