10/29/2024
Africa is beginning to split into two.
It’s easy to forget the Earth is alive and brimming with energy. But it is, and it's slowly changing the land that sits on it. Around 200-300 million years ago, all the land on Earth formed one massive supercontinent known as Pangea, but as the tectonic plates shifted they eventually split into the seven we know today. However, in 2018, researchers saw something concerning. After heavy rains, a large crack stretching several kilometers suddenly made an appearance in south-western Kenya.
The tear in the continent continues to grow, but its location within the Kenyan Rift valley sparked a decades old debate around whether Africa will one day break apart.
The valley is part of a region known as the East African Rift System (EAST), and sits in one of the most tectonically active regions of the world. The rift began developing around 25 million years ago, and extends over 3,500km (2,174 miles) from the Red Sea in the north all the way to Mozambique in the southeast of the African continent. Seismic and volcanic activity occurs along its entire length, and is responsible for creating mountains including Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya.
But there is no need to worry, the actual split is scheduled for around 50 millions of years time, and there is a chance that we, as a species, will not be around long enough to see it. But it is thought that when the emerging crack tears away, it will separate the smaller Somalian plate from the larger Nubian plate. This will form two unequal parts of Africa, and activity along the eastern branch of the rift valley, running along Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, became evident when the large crack suddenly appeared in south-western Kenya.
In around 25 million years time, when the two plates separate, a new ocean will be formed, and previously landlocked countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, and Zambia will get a coastline. Research published in the Geophysical Research Letters looked at seismic data from the rift formation to show that the crack is driven by processes similar to those at the bottom of the ocean. The study said the Somalian plate and the Nubian plate are splitting at a rate of around seven millimeters per year, and soon the land within the valley will sink.
(Picture: Getty)
