After a deep slumber estimated at about 10 to 12 thousand years, the Haile Gobi volcano erupted in the Afar region of Ethiopia, raising an obvious question about the new changes that occurred in the region, causing this sleeping monster to wake up after such a long period of dormancy.
Among the answers that have been frequently repeated in an attempt to understand what is happening is the attempt by some to hold the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam responsible. Although it is scientifically proven that there is no direct relationship between the construction of dams and the eruption of volcanoes, experts with this opinion point to geological and hydrological factors that may link them indirectly.
Among these researchers at the Universities of Michigan and Arizona in the United States is Dr. Karem Abdel Mohsen, who supports his opinion with his findings. the study Published in the journal “BNAS”, affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences in the United States of America, in which he participated with others from several American universities.
Abdel Mohsen told Al Jazeera Net, “The study monitored, using satellites, the leakage of a large amount of dam water amounting to approximately 30 billion cubic meters over 4 years,” noting that “water moves quickly in volcanic rocks and deep faults, and may travel distances of up to hundreds of kilometers. This type of activity may not cause a volcanic eruption, but it may contribute to reactivating faults linked to the African Rift, where the Haile Gobi volcano is located.”
Earthquakes lead to volcanoes
The relationship between the activation of faults and the subsequent occurrence of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions is scientifically proven, as studies confirm that earthquakes may play a pivotal role in accelerating the eruption of some volcanoes, when the volcano is in a state of “internal readiness” to explode. When the magma chamber is filled and the pressure rises in the interior of the earth, a moderate-strength earthquake can open new cracks in the crust, allowing the magma a quick path to the surface and accelerating the moment of eruption.
Geophysical studies also indicate that earthquakes that occur above faults directly connected to magma chambers can double the chances of eruption, as the vibrations resulting from the earthquake may expand deep cracks or change the path of internal pressures, creating new corridors for magma and accelerating the occurrence of a volcanic explosion.
The Afar region, where the Haile Gobi volcano is located, has been exposed to many earthquakes and earthquakes since the beginning of 2025, the strongest of which occurred on January 4 with a magnitude of 5.7, according to the US Geological Survey and the German Center for Geoscience Research.
Acknowledgment of leakage and rejection of influence
Dr. Peter Purcell, an expert at B&R Geological Consulting Limited in Western Australia, who had study In the Afar region, it was published by the Journal of African Earth Sciences that the host rocks of the Renaissance Dam, which are essentially volcanic and mainly include basalt, leak water due to their relatively high permeability. Although he acknowledged this observation mentioned by the study of Abdel Mohsen and his peers, he contented himself with saying to Al Jazeera Net, “I do not see, however, a clear link between the leakage of water from the Renaissance Dam and the reactivation of the Gobi Volcano.”
Federico Sanni, a professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Florence Studies in Italy, who had a study in the Afar region published by Mal. patrol “Tectonophysics” agreed with Purcell’s opinion, but he went on to explain, saying, “I have discussed this matter with other colleagues who are volcanologists and structural geologists like me, and we all rule out that the volcanic eruption has anything to do with the dam built on the Nile River, which is 700 kilometers away from the volcano site.”
He added, “Moreover, the fault network at the dam site and its surrounding areas is located on the so-called Ethiopian Plateau, and has nothing to do with the fault systems affecting the Haile Gobi volcano area, located in the Afar Depression, and has a completely different origin.”
He concluded his comment, “If any fault is reactivated due to water, it will be in the areas surrounding the dam, not 700 kilometers away.”
An attempt to reconcile opinions
Despite what appears to be a big difference between the two opinions, Abdel Mohsen continues in his statement to Al Jazeera Net that “what they have in common is greater than the disagreement between them. Both commentators agreed on the leakage of water from the Renaissance Dam, and that this leakage could lead to the activation of faults, but the difference between them was in the extent to which that water could reach. While the experts Purcell and Sani tended to limit the impact of this leakage and confine it to the scope of the fault associated with the Renaissance Dam, our study believes that the effect may reach the activation of faults associated with the African Rift, Where is the Haile Gobi volcano located?
Abdul Mohsen explains, “Ethiopia contains a complex system of geological cracks and faults that can affect the movement of water, as these cracks act as channels that facilitate the leakage of water into the surrounding geological formations.”
He added, “According to what we observed in our study, the leaking water may travel long distances, and it is easy for this water to reach the faults in the Blue Canyon connected to the Renaissance Dam, which intersects in parts with the African Canyon fault, where the Haile Gobi volcano is located.”
He goes further, saying, “There is nothing preventing the water from reaching the distance that Purcell and Sani see as being far away. The water reaching a distance between 400 and 700 kilometers was monitored in a study of ours that was in a rocky environment that is not at the level of permeability of the rocks on which the Renaissance Dam was built.”
This study was monitored and published On patrol Earth Science Reviews: Water seeping from Lake Nasser in Egypt reaches an estimated distance of 700 km, reaching the Dakhla Oasis region in the Western Desert of Egypt.
Based on this complex tectonic situation that links the fault on which the dam is located to the faults near it, which are connected to the African Rift, Abdul Mohsen believes that the impact of the volcano on the dam must also be studied.
He says, “Just as the effect of the dam water on the volcanic eruption is indirect, the danger of the volcanic eruption on the dam body is also indirect.”
He added, “The volcano is just a prelude to a great tectonic movement that may unleash a wave of seismic activity through extended networks of faults. The Arada fault, on which the dam is located, is linked to networks of faults connected to the fault system in the African Rift, and any major change in tectonic stresses could extend across these faults, causing a rapid impact. This is what we observed in a GPS satellite station called DJEG, which is close to the volcano’s range, where data showed more than more than “10 years has been relatively stable in motion, which means that the recent eruption did not have any long-term precursors, making it more likely that impacts on this complex network of faults would occur suddenly.”
Call for further studies
Despite Abdel Mohsen’s seeming enthusiasm for his point of view, which differs in assessing the magnitude of the effects of the Renaissance Dam with what Purcell and Sanni argued, he says, “What we have reached are opinions that were formulated based on previous studies, and it is certain that the eruption of the Haile Gobi volcano after 12,000 years of dormancy arouses the appetite of geologists for studies that may deny or confirm what we have argued.”
It is expected that such studies will change many concepts because what happened was an unusual volcanic eruption, which prompted Juliet Biggs, an earth scientist at the University of Bristol in England, to declare to the Scientific American website: I would be truly surprised if a date more than 12 thousand years ago was the last date for the eruption.
Therefore, Samson Tesfaye, professor of earth sciences at the American University of Lincoln, who conducted the study, refused study A precedent in the Afar region, published by the “Geomorphology” journal, anticipating the results of these studies and commenting on the causes of this sudden eruption and its relationship to the Renaissance Dam, saying to Al Jazeera Net when we asked him to comment, “I prefer to wait for what these studies will produce so that we can form a clear picture of what happened there.”