Ethiopia Today

Abstract

Before exploring Ethiopia’s geological past it is useful to take a look at her present topographic regions and see how these relate to her geological make-up. In doing this, and in many of the following sections of this book, we come up against the inconvenience of politics. Geology has no respect for national boundaries and Ethiopia and her neighbours, particularly Eritrea and Djibouti , are a geological and geographical entity and will be considered as such in the discussions which follow. Since it would be cumbersome to use a term such as Ethiopia/Eritrea/Djibouti throughout the book, the reader should be aware that the term Ethiopia often implicitly comprises the region covered by the three countries. The currently fragmented lands which used to constitute Somalia are also relevant to parts of our story, but logistical reasons prevent their being included in any detail.