{"id":1768,"date":"2023-01-17T20:19:08","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T20:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/?page_id=1768"},"modified":"2023-12-07T10:09:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T10:09:17","slug":"tanzanias-great-rift-valley","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/tanzanias-great-rift-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Tanzania’s Great Rift Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

Background information:<\/u> \u00a0By edgardo <\/strong>welelo@yahoo.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"The steep \u2013 sided basin is part of a great chasm, or rift,<\/u><\/strong> in the Earth\u2019s crust known as the Great Rift Valley.<\/strong> Africa Rift Valleys occur when huge long blocks of the Earth\u2019s crust sink. The rift marks a point where the African plate is moving away from the smaller Arabian plate and the Somalian subplate.<\/strong> In all, it stretches 4200 miles (6700 km) from Turkey to southern Africa. After passing through Syria, Israel and Jordan, where the Ocean has invaded and the valley is filled with the waters of the Red sea.<\/strong> Between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa, the valley swings eastwards and divides into two. One half passes along the Gulf of Aden into the Indian Ocean, while the other continues through Africa, where it cradles the deep East African lakes.<\/strong> A rift valley begins life when plumes of semi \u2013 molten magma push upwards and then spread in diverging currents under the Earth\u2019s crust. Tension splits the crust apart in long fissures, known as faults.<\/strong> Between them, a narrow wedge of land subsides into a chasm to produce a valley with cliff \u2013 like walls along the fault lines. If the sea level rises, the valley may well become flooded.<\/strong> As the rift continues to widen, a new sea grows. The Red sea, which floods part of the Great Rift Valley, is one of Earth\u2019s Youngest Oceans.<\/strong><\/p>\n

REALMS OF THE ALBERTINE<\/strong><\/p>\n

From Lake Albert borders Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through Lake Tanganyika borders across Tanzania, DRC, Burundi and Zambia, the 920 \u2013 mile \u2013 long rift holds four (4) ecosystems vital to its biodiversity. With fertile volcanic soil and ample rain, it also supports one of Africa\u2019s densest human populations, mainly subsistence farmers. Those four Albertine rift ecosystems are; Montane forest, Alpine moorland, Lake and Wetland, and Savanna \u2013 forest mosaic. <\/strong><\/p>\n

SPLITTING A CONTINENT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Africa\u2019s Great Rift Valley follows the edges of tectonic plates that merged more than a billion years ago.<\/strong> Now the plates are separating, or rifting, along those seams. The Arabian plate was the first to split off,<\/strong> starting 30 to 25 million years ago.\u00a0 In another 30 million years, rifting may cleave the Somalian plate from the main continent and detach the block called the TANZANIA CRATON. <\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 10 MILLION YEARS AGO <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Tectonic plates begin to move apart as magma rises. A shallow valley forms, with a low escarpment, or ridge, along a fault line. Lava oozes up through fissures and cools into sheets of rock.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. 5 MILLION YEARS AGO<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      More magma rises as the land continues to stretch and fracture. Volcanic cones begin to dot the valley. Faulting causes the west side of the valley to sink, heightening the escarpment.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. 3 MILLION YEARS AGO<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        The widening rift valley sinks further, creating an escarpment on the east. Streams flowing from the western highlands fill an early LAKE KIVU. Erupting volcanoes will form the VIRUNGA MOUNTAINS. <\/strong><\/p>\n

          \n
        1. TODAY<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          Three volcanoes remain active. Nyiragongo erupted in 1977 and 2002, and very recently 2022, taking lives and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Molten rock beneath 1,600 \u2013 foot – deep Lake Kivu releases carbon dioxide, which gets trapped in the lake. If an earthquake or eruption freed the gas, along with trapped methane, the death would catastrophic<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

          THE ALBERTINE ARK<\/strong><\/p>\n

          The Albertine Rift cradles more than 850 species found nowhere else including the rare mountains gorilla (about 780 remain) and the poisonous Great Lakes bush viper. There are familiar faces too; over 50 percent of the African continent\u2019s bird species and almost 40 percent of its mammal species live here.<\/p>\n

          AFRICA\u2019S GREAT LAKES<\/strong><\/p>\n

          They are a shimmering outline of the Great Rift Valley,<\/strong> lakes that fill chasms and craters<\/strong> left by geologic forces still rending East Africa. Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi (Nyasa) are among the world\u2019s ten largest lakes, Tanganyika\u2019s 4,800 \u2013 foot plunge makes it the second deepest in the world after Lake Baikal in Russia. \u00a0The Great lakes proper usually include Victoria and the lakes that curve to its west, but remarkable lakes also trace other arms of the complex Great Rift Valley, from Ethiopia down through Kenya and Tanzania. Streams feeding Lake Victoria from Rwanda and Burundi are the ultimate source of the Nile. <\/strong><\/p>\n

            \n
          1. EAST AFRICAN RIFT SYSTEM<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            The Great Rift Valley is not one continuous formation but a series of rift valleys of related origin. Tectonic plates that once merged to form Africa have been moving apart \u2013 or rifting \u2013 stretching and fracturing Earth\u2019s crust. The rifting was set in motion more than 30 million years ago when plumes of superheated rock rise beneath the crust, causing it to bulge and thin. The brittle crust fractured, creating valleys bound by mountains and escarpments.<\/strong><\/p>\n

              \n
            1. ETHIOPIAN RIFT<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              Here the Great Rift cleaves the Ethiopian Highlands, a towering expanse of eroded volcanic basalt. Ethiopia\u2019s rift is the oldest, dating from when the Arabian Peninsula began to break from the continent 30 -25 million years ago. Its lakes, alkaline with minerals leached from volcanic soil, are vital stop overs for migrating water birds. Human needs take a toll: the national park around lakes Abijatta and Shalla is occupied by subsistence farmers and herders. <\/strong><\/p>\n

                \n
              1. LAKE VICTORIA AND THE TANZANIA CRATON <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                Africa\u2019s largest Lake Victoria \/ Nyanza by the Wasukuma ethnic largest group of Tanzania, only 270 feet deep. Victoria \/ Nyanza does not fill a great fracture, as does Lake Tanganyika; it is a depression created when a deep plume of superheated rock thinned the crust. Two arms of the Great Rift Valley, the Western Rift and Eastern Rift, were forced to part around the lake because it sits on a formation called the TANZANIA CRATON. A craton is a block of rock a billion or more years old, too hard and thick to be split by rifting. <\/strong><\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. EASTERN RIFT \/ GREGORY RIFT <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  From Lake Turkana south, volcanism is the signature of the Eastern Rift, home to Africa\u2019s tallest mountain, the now dormant Kilimanjaro. Still erupting, Tanzania\u2019s OL DONYO LENGAI<\/strong> is sacred to the Maasai. Fertile volcanic ash created the wildlife \u2013 rich grasslands of the Serengeti plain.<\/strong> The rift\u2019s lakes and hot springs are mainly shallow and alkaline from volcanic soil. They nourish a type of algae that feeds the largest concentration of flamingos on Earth.<\/p>\n

                    \n
                  1. WESTERN RIFT (ALBERTINE RIFT) <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                    The snowy Ruwenzori Mountains, the volcanic Virunga chain, and other ranges \u2013 all born during the rift\u2019s creation \u2013 contribute to high rainfall, which keeps freshwater flowing into the Great Lakes. To the south another rift holds 2,300 \u2013 foot \u2013 deep lake Malawi (Nyasa). No other lake in the world has more species of fish \u2013 over 800, most found only here.<\/p>\n

                    HUMAN POPULATION AROUND GREAT RIFT VALLEY<\/strong><\/p>\n

                    Most residents of the Great Rift Valley are subsistence farmers, herders, and fishermen. The largest urban area is Kenya\u2019s capital, Nairobi, the commercial hub of East Africa. High population density in the Ethiopian Highlands and along the Albertine Rift reflects large families surviving on small plots of fertile land.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                    Background information: \u00a0By edgardo welelo@yahoo.com The steep \u2013 sided basin is part of a great chasm, or rift, in the Earth\u2019s crust known as the Great Rift Valley. Africa Rift Valleys occur when huge long blocks of the Earth\u2019s crust sink. The rift marks a point where the African plate is moving away from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1768","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1770,"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1768\/revisions\/1770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/domestictourismsafaris.co.tz\/site2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}