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A map of East Africa showing some of the historically active volcanoes (as red triangles) and the Afar Triangle (shaded at the center), which is a so-called triple junction (or triple point) where three plates are pulling away from one another: the Arabian Plate and two parts of the African Plate—the Nubian and Somali—splitting along the East African Rift Zone Main rift faults, plates ...
The Great Rift Valley (Swahili: Bonde la ufa) is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6000 or 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Mozambique in Southeast Africa. [1][2] While the name ...
Lake Turkana is an East African Rift feature. [18] A rift is a weak place in the Earth's crust due to the separation of two tectonic plates, often accompanied by a graben, or trough, in which lake water can collect. The rift began when East Africa, impelled by currents in the mantle, [19] began separating from the rest of Africa, moving to the ...
Ol Doinyo Lengai is part of the Gregory Rift, [1] which is part of the active East African Rift. The East African Rift is a continental rift extending from eastern to southern Africa over a length of 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi), [20] where there is high heat flow through a thinner crust. [21] In the Gregory Rift, spreading began about 1.2 ...
Great Rift Valley, Ethiopia. The Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia, (or Main Ethiopian Rift or Ethiopian Rift Valley) is a branch of the East African Rift that runs through Ethiopia in a southwest direction from the Afar Triple Junction. In the past, it was seen as part of a "Great Rift Valley" that ran from Mozambique to Syria.
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 Olduvai Gorge or Oldupai Gorge in Tanzania is one of the most important paleoanthropological localities in the world; the many sites exposed by the gorge have proven invaluable in furthering understanding of early human evolution. A steep-sided ravine in the Great Rift Valley that stretches across East Africa, it is about 48 km long, and is ...
Afar Triple Junction. Coordinates: 11°30′N 43°00′E. The triple junction is at 11°30′N 43°00′E, inside the Afar Triangle (at center shaded red). Fault lines are in black, and red triangles show historically active volcanoes. The Afar Triple Junction (also called the Afro-Arabian Rift System) is located along a divergent plate ...