By Arkabrata Bala
Due to heavy rainfall in the area West of Nairobi, Kenya last month, a massive crack measuring 50 feet deep and 65 feet wide has been exposed, leading to concerns about the African continent splitting into two parts.
The sudden appearance of the crack in the Great Rift Valley caused a part of the Nairobi-Narok highway to collapse. According to media reports, residents in the area saw the crack forming and fled their houses with their belongings in an attempt to save themselves. Although the highway was repaired within a day, geologists and experts predict it could continue spreading further with the expected torrential rains and the shifts in tectonic plates.
Geologist David Adede, speaking to a local African newspaper, Daily Nation, said he thinks the crack appeared due to the washing away of the volcanic ash from nearby Mt. Longonot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYOs1s6VcFo
What is the Great Rift?
The crack is considered to be just one of the weak spots on the Great Rift Valley, which currently runs through the African continent from the Horn of Africa to Mozambique, according to scientists. A rift valley is a region of lowland where tectonic plates move apart.
The East African Rift Valley stretches for over 3,000 km from the Gulf of Aden to Zimbabwe thereby, splitting the African plate into two unequal parts: the Somali and Nubian plates. Within the East African Rift, there are two smaller rifts, namely the Gregory Rift and the Western Rift, both of which are lined with volcanoes. The two plates are moving away from each other, making the rifts larger with time.
Similar rifts exist in Eastern Russia and Antarctica, however, the East African Rift is the largest of this kind.
When will the split happen?
The Somalian and Nubian plates started detaching themselves 25 million years ago it is expected that in another 50 million years, the plates will separate completely. However, more importantly, the physical effects of the separation as experienced on the Nairobi-Narok highway will continue to impact residents of the area.
Researcher Lucia Perez Diaz from Royal Holloway, University of London writing in the Conversation, added that while “dramatic events, such as sudden motorway-splitting” make continental rifting seem urgent, “rifting is a very slow process that, most of the time, goes about splitting Africa without anybody even noticing.”
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