The two lakes themselves are separated by a ridge of basalt known as Tosa Sucha, or the “Bridge of God”,which formed between 1.34 and 0.68 million years ago. Currently, the only connection between the lakes is a small channel which flows only when their water levels are at their highest. Tosa Sucha is now part of the Nech Sar (“white grass”) National Park.

A group of cinder cones at Tosa Sucha on the north shore of Lake Chamo in the southern Ethiopian Rift has produced unvegetated olivine basaltic lava flows and may have been active as recently as historical time. The cones and flows on the eastern end of the Chamo Basin were erupted along NNE-trending fissures between Lake Chamo and Lake Abaya to the north. Some cones form islands in Lake Chamo.

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