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Main rift faults, plates, plate boundaries, GPS plate velocities between adjacent blocks and minimum horizontal stress directions. The East African Rift ( EAR) or East African Rift System ( EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. [1]
This rift zone separates the African Plate to the west from the Somali Plate to the east. One hypothesis proposes a mantle plume rising beneath the Afar region pushing the crust outward, whereas an opposing hypothesis explains the rifting by dynamics in the crust, as a break in the African Plate along a line of maximum weakness as plates to its ...
The term Great Rift Valley is most often used to refer to the valley of the East African Rift, the divergent plate boundary which extends from the Afar Triple Junction southward through eastern Africa, and is in the process of splitting the African Plate into two new and separate plates. Geologists generally refer to these evolving plates as ...
Red Sea Rift. The Red Sea Rift is a mid-ocean ridge between two tectonic plates, the African Plate and the Arabian Plate. It extends from the Dead Sea Transform fault system, and ends at an intersection with the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift, forming the Afar Triple Junction in the Afar Depression of the Horn of Africa .
Triple junction. A triple junction is the point where the boundaries of three tectonic plates meet. At the triple junction each of the three boundaries will be one of three types – a ridge (R), trench (T) or transform fault (F) – and triple junctions can be described according to the types of plate margin that meet at them (e.g. Fault-Fault ...
List of tectonic plate interactions. Three types of plate boundary. Convergent boundary. Divergent boundary. Transform boundary. Tectonic plate interactions are classified into three basic types: [1] Convergent boundaries are areas where plates move toward each other and collide. These are also known as compressional or destructive boundaries.
Divergent boundaries are typified in the oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise, and in the continental lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East African Great Rift Valley. Divergent boundaries can create massive fault zones in the oceanic ridge system.
The East African Rift, where three plates are pulling away from one another: the Arabian Plate and two parts of the African Plate—the Nubian and Somali—which eventually led to the formation of the Lwandle plate as well as other microplates. The Afar Triangle, shaded at the center, is a triple junction that separates the three plates.