2023-07-10 02:53:00
The earth rumbles beneath the African continent. This is due to the shifting of the tectonic plates, i.e. the individual pieces of the earth’s crust that are in constant motion.
The great African Rift Valley began 30 million years ago. The African plate breaks on its eastern side, creating a new tectonic plate: the so-called Somalia plate.
Now the effects are becoming more apparent on the surface of the earth. The result is cracks! The first harbingers came in 2005: a crack more than 50 kilometers long opened up in the Ethiopian desert. In 2018, the next fissure followed in Kenya, 15 meters deep, 20 meters wide and several kilometers long.
The rift is widening at about an inch a year and could eventually result in Somalia, Ethiopia, Tanzania and half of Kenya forming a giant island off Africa.
Geologists have known for a long time that the African plate is about to break. But what was not finally clarified for a long time: What is actually driving the break?
A new study by scientists from the American University of Virginia Tech now confirms the following theory: Huge magma currents under the earth’s crust are responsible for the crack.
Using a computer model, the researchers calculated that the shifting of the tectonic plates could be due to the so-called African superplume.
This is an upflow of extremely hot rock that rises from the deepest parts of the Earth’s mantle and presses against the Earth’s crust from below.
So-called mantle plumes have repeatedly triggered volcanic eruptions around the world, superplumes are the even larger variant of this. Due to their mass and heat, they can also influence the climate and tectonic movements.
The world’s largest superplume is found under Africa. Beneath Ethiopia, the liquid rock rises to a depth of ten kilometers below the surface. This is how the earth’s crust is weakened, scientists from the British University of Leeds have discovered.
However, according to the experts, it will be another five to ten million years before a new continent splits off from Africa.
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