Book excerpt: Understanding Ethiopia is a detailed description of Ethiopia’s geological story and enables non-specialist readers to share the author’s thrill at gaining a deeper insight into the processes which produced, and continue to shape, this amazing country. Ethiopia’s spectacular landscapes, ranging from mountains over 4500m high to salt plains 150m below sea level, are a reflection of the geological processes that formed the country. Indeed, its history and the historical sites, for which it is renowned, are largely determined by geology. Readers learn why and how Ethiopia’s geology is both unique and dynamic, as here the earth’s crust is in the process of breaking apart.