Africa is Splitting into Two Continents and Most People Are Not Aware

Overseas, less than two decades ago, the ground began to split open in Africa with fractures opening up in different countries, even

splitting

one man's house in two. Since then, it has been obvious that Africa is undergoing a continental breakup. Such a breakup occurs when a continent is destined to split into two or more when this happens new

continents

, islands and oceans will form and our world will never be the same why Africa is dividing what is causing the earth to open up what is it the implication for Africans and the world at large Join us in this video as we discuss how Africa is

splitting

into two

continents

and

most

people

don't even know it.

In 2005, images and reports began to emerge of a continental breakup occurring in East Africa. A continental breakup is a term given to situations. where a continent appears to break or separate into two or more, this is normal everywhere in the world; In fact, every continent in our world today emerged as a result of rifting and shifting tectonic plates to understand what is happening in Africa. I need to understand what happened hundreds of millions of years ago Hundreds of millions of years ago, planet Earth was just a solid, singular piece of land surrounded by a single mass of water, it was just a continent called Pangea and an ocean called panthelasa during the next million. years the outer crust of the Earth heated and cooled and broke and separated into what we see today this is what led to the formation of continents Islands, oceans and seas, although it may seem that the Earth is stationary, in reality the Earth It is in a constant state of movement and change.

The Earth's crust, sometimes referred to as the lithosphere, is what you and I find ourselves in every day. This lithosphere is made up of between 15 and 20 tectonic plates that are constantly separating or approaching each other. These plates are the great earth. Masses that form the different continents and islands. When you think of these plates, think of them as pieces of a cracked layer that lie in the extremely hot sea of ​​molten rock within the core of our planet. These plates are tightly bonded together due to the scorching temperature. of the Earth's core acting on the plates, these plates are constantly moving, sometimes moving towards or away from each other, this movement is known as plate motion or tectonic shift, have you ever noticed how the east coast of America fits together of the South and west coast of Africa when you look? a globe actually once stood together different continents and oceans were formed when the huge continent broke apart according to NASA Earth Observatory the Somalia plate in the east is moving east away from the largest and oldest part of the continent the Nubian plate the Somalia plate is sometimes known as the Somali plate, while the Nubian plate is sometimes called the African plate.

Interestingly, both the Somali and Nubian plates are also moving away from the Arabian plate in the north, all these plates meet in the far region of Ethiopia forming a y- According to the Geological Society of London, this separation of the Somali plate from The Nubian Plate is also known as the East African Rift. The East African Rift is a network of valleys that stretches about 2,175 miles long from the Red Sea to Mozambique. The Somali tectonic plate completely breaks away from the larger Nubian plate, the result will be the division of the world's second largest continent into two.

This would be an exciting phenomenon for geologists and any other scientist, as there has not been anything like this since South America and Africa split into different continents hundreds of millions of years ago; However, if this happens, it cannot happen in our lifetime, as it would take 5 to 10 million years for there to be a clean separation of the Somali plate from the Nubian. Plaque might not be the only possible scenario here. One possibility is that

most

of the Somali plates break away from the rest of the continent. This partial separation will lead to the formation of a new sea between the two land masses.

This new land mass will include Somalia, Eritrea. Djibouti and the eastern parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, there is also a possibility that only eastern Tanzania and Mozambique will secede. The countries that will benefit from this rift are those that are currently landlocked, such as Ethiopia and Uganda, the introduction of a coastline from the emergence of a new ocean will greatly improve their economy with new opportunities for trade and production. . According to Ken McDonald, a marine geophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will flood over the far region and into the East African Rift Valley and become a new ocean and that part of East Africa will become its separate little continent.

Reports show that although the crack is obvious to the eye, it is not growing fast enough for there to be a full crack at this time, it is separating. about a quarter of an inch each year Ken McDonald further says that the split right now is very slow in terms of the rate at which toenails grow, but how do these cracks form? Why remains a subject of debate among geologists and geophysicists, according to a popular model Predominantly assumed, the assumption is that there is an increase in the flow of heat coming from the depths of the earth and this is causing what are called thermal bulges that are They can be seen in central Kenya and in the far north central region of Ethiopia.

These bulges are easily identifiable on any Highland topographic map. As elevated as these bulges form, they stretch and fracture the fragile outer crust in a series of normal faults. The bulges for most geologists and geophysicists are caused by heat. exerted on the Earth's crust by the mantle plumes found beneath the continent. A mantle plume is an area beneath the Earth's crust where magma is hotter than the surrounding magma. The heat from this extra hot magma causes the overlying crust to melt and thin, causing the bulges to expand and fracture. This could also lead to widespread volcanic activity on the Earth's surface.

Above the column, the stretching of thermal bulges is often preceded by huge volcanic eruptions that flow over large areas. These eruptions are often exposed at the edges of the crack. Some geologists refer to these eruptions as flood basalts. In this type of eruption, lava explodes. Along the fractures of the bulges, instead of erupting into individual volcanoes, lava flows over the land as if it were water during a flood. One feature that is obvious in the current Rift in Africa is the presence of a rift valley. a lowland region that forms when two tectonic plates move apart or drift apart rift valleys are often found on land and on the ocean floor in the ocean they are created by the process of seafloor spreading rift valleys Rift valleys are different from river valleys and glacial valleys in that they are created by the movement of tectonic plates and not by the process of erosion.

Many rift valleys are part of triple junctions. This happens when three tectonic plates meet at angles of approximately 120 degrees. When this happens, two arms of the triple junction often split to form an entire ocean. The third arm. A failed rift sometimes called aulakogan can become a rift valley. An example of this is the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is the result. From a triple junction that began in what is now the Gulf of Guinea off the west coast of Africa, two arms of a triple junction on the supercontinent Pangea created the ocean, while the aulakojin formed the rift valley known as the Bennu A depression. across what is now southern Nigeria.

Sometimes you can also find rift valleys underwater, which often divide long mountain ranges and are called mid-ocean ridges, they are formed when tectonic plates separate from each other at mid-ocean ridges. Mantle magma swells and hardens upon contact with sea ice, forming new oceanic crust at the bottom of the rift valley in the north. Mid-Atlantic Ridge: The North American plate and the Eurasian plate are moving apart at a rate of about one inch per year for tens of millions of years. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge has formed rift valleys up to nine miles wide in the Pacific Ocean. Pacific Rise has created rift valleys where the Pacific Plate is separating from the North American Plate Cocos Plate Nazca Plate and Antarctic Plate Typical of many submarine rift valleys the Eastern Pacific Rise is dotted with hydrothermal vents these vents They are created by geological activities beneath the underwater Rift Valley which causes the release of superheated water and fluids into the body of water.

A rift valley close to and similar to the East African Rift is the Great Rift Valley. The Great Rift Valley is possibly the best-known Rift Valley on the planet. This Rift Valley extends. From the Middle East in the north to Mozambique in the south, the Great Rift Valley is well known for its geological activity with volcanoes, hot spring geysers and frequent earthquakes. The East African Rift has two main branches, the Western Rift and the Gregory Rift, these two rifts. The valleys are dotted with volcanoes from ER to Alle in Ethiopia and Mount Kenya in Kenya, although it is now an extinct stratovolcano.

Other spotted volcanoes include Alduino Lenghai in Tanzania, Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, which is a dormant strata volcano, and Mount Nirogongo in the Democratic Republic of. Congo, the Western Rift is also known as the Albertine Rift or the Lake Albert Rift and contains the East African Great Lakes. The Western Rift is one of the most biodiverse areas in Africa, its features include snow-capped mountains, savannahs, highland forests and a couple of exotic lakes, on the other hand, the Gregory Rift, named after the geologist who mapped it for the first time, it extends from the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea to Mount Kilimanjaro.

One of the most important features of the Gregory Rift is the Afar triple junction. The Afar Triple Junction is where the Horn of Africa straddles the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aiden in the Arabian Sea, at this junction the Arabian Plate, Nubian Plate and Somali Plate are moving away from each other, making What is noticeable is that the two arms of the far triple junction continue to widen through the process of seafloor spreading, one of the arms extending towards the Red Sea and the other extending towards the Gulf of Aden as these Rifts continue, the small valley created by the Gregory Rift could become so depressed that the Arabian Sea floods.

If this happens, this new Horn of Africa Strait would become a continental island like Madagascar or New Zealand. One interesting thing to note about the East African Rift is that although the same process developed both the Western and Gregory branches, they actually have different characters. In The Gregory Rift what we see is increased volcanic activity, while The Western Rift has much deeper basins that have large lakes and lots of sediment. One of these lakes is Lake Tanganyika, which is the second deepest lake in the world. Another is the lake. In Malawi, where basalt eruptions and active rift formation are observed, geologists have recently had to look at the East African Rift system to see how ocean basins form on land.

This is an exciting thing for scientists, as it gives them the opportunity to directly study how the Rifts work. an opportunity they cannot get anywhere else in the world, as most of the Rifts have progressed to being silted up or underwater. The East African Rift system, on the other hand, is an excellent field laboratory for studying a modern Rift system in active development. They are also often one of the characteristics of a rift valley system. Rift lakes form when fresh water fills a rift valley. An example of one such formation is when the North American plate began to crack over a billion years ago as rifting continued.

The Triple Junction formed right in the middle of the young continent and soon a deep Rift Valley developed and over the years fresh water accumulated in this Rift Valley and the result was the creation of a lake; However, the rift failed and was completed after many millions of years the continent survived the rift with the arms unable to separate to form a new ocean today the remains of that ancient Rift Lake Lake Superior rests on one of the rift valleys oldest and deepest in the world another example of a rift lake is the lake called rift lake located above the Baikal Rift Valley in Siberia Lake Baikal is the deepest and oldest freshwater lake in the world.

The deepest parts of this lakeRift measure about 5,387 feet, in addition, layers of soft sediments have been slowly collected and deposited. on the lake bed 25 million years ago, in fact the actual rift valley floor is more than three miles deep. Lake Baikal also holds the record for the largest volume of freshwater in the world, with a massive 5,700 cubic miles. Another example of a rift lake formation is the Dead Sea in the Jordan Rift Valley, although the Dead Sea is not the deepest lake in the world, the depth of the Jordan Rift easily makes it the lowest land elevation in the world the surface of the Dead The sea is 1,407 feet below sea level, while the lake still reaches out to about 997 feet deep in the ground;

However, unlike Lake Baikal, the Dead Sea is not a true Rift Lake, as the rift beneath it did not completely form it. What we have here is the The so-called Dead Sea Transform is a geologically complex area where tectonic plates interact in many ways. Some of the most famous rift lakes in the world include those found in the rift valleys of East Africa. Rift simply known as the Rift Valley Lakes. These lakes extend from Ethiopia to Malawi, these lakes are known to be sites of incredible biodiversity. The lakes present here include freshwater lakes like Lake Baikal and saltwater lakes similar to the Dead Sea.

These Rift Valley lakes are Lake Tanganyika, it is a lake that shares its shores along the coasts of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Zambia, it is also home to hundreds of endemic species of tick fish, as well as many others. Rift freshwater fish.Valley lakes, on the other hand, Lake Natron in Tanzania is one of the shallow alkali-rich lakes of the East African Rift. It has a beautiful red color due to the pink salt-loving bacteria that live in the salt water and not due to the geology of its rocks. Another lake worth mentioning is Lake Malawi, also called Lake Nyasa or Lake Nyasa, it is the third lake deepest freshwater in the world.

Lake Malawi is located at the southern end of the western arm of the East African Rift Valley, its basin is densely populated and has a high prevalence of waterborne diseases with around 800 to 1000 species of fish. It also has the richest fish species of all the lakes in the world. As the East African Rift continues its path of dividing Africa, the region has grown in its perceived importance to all stakeholders. From geologists to environmentalists to the government, everyone is

aware

of what is happening in the rift valley. It has acquired a level of importance in understanding how human evolution developed in the past.

There have been many hominid fossil discoveries in the rift valley. It has been dubbed The Cradle of Humankind with many paleoanthropological discoveries. Scientists are currently thinking about how rift evolution might have played an important role in our development as a species. Some of these discoveries include Lucy, a hominid skeleton unearthed in Ethiopia that is more than 3 million years old. There is also the Turkana child and the skeleton of a hominid almost 2 million years old discovered in Kenya. Many experts believe that the structure and evolution of the East African Rift led to the creation of an ideal environment for the proliferation of life, plus the presence of a rift would have made East Africa more sensitive to climate change.

This would have led to disruptions between wet and dry seasons. This environmental pressure might have helped. Driving our ancestors to become bipedal and more intelligent as they sought to adapt to these climate changes. The Rift system is a complex system of Rift segments that help us understand how continents break up and oceans form, but it is also much more than that. The East African Rift Valley is also a potential source of energy due to the volume of volcanic and tectonic activities taking place. In fact, the United Nations Environment Program is currently working on a geothermal energy program that would take advantage of this.

The planned program would convert heat created by the Rift Valley's underground activity into electricity through a series of steam wells, estimated to be a single well. would have the capacity to produce enough energy for 5 700 homes, if successful this program would provide a sustainable energy source for millions of

people

, many of whom do not have access to electricity today, although this is a good thing, the same changes volcanic and tectonic events have occurred It is known to have caused undesirable situations for the people of the region with the rising water level, the least of their problems with the oil discovered around one of the lakes, there could be another chapter in the history of The division of Africa by land mass, the intense malnutrition and level of poverty of the people living in the regions, together with the unpredictability of an active Rift with all its volcanic and tectonic irregularities, contrast with the enthusiasm of scientists, while that Africa might not be divided into two or more.

In our lifetime, the East African Rift will be one of the most important things in shaping our future in the decades and centuries to come. Thanks for watching another episode of Voyager while you're here. Be sure to click on the video on your screen to see more amazing videos about space.