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A rift valley is a linear shaped lowland between several highlands or mountain ranges produced by the action of a geologic rift. Rifts are formed as a result of the pulling apart of the lithosphere due to extensional tectonics .
The Great Rift Valley of Africa provides critical evidence for the evolution of early hominins.The earliest tools in the world can be found there as well: An unidentified hominin, possibly Australopithecus afarensis or Kenyanthropus platyops, created stone tools dating to 3.3 million years ago at Lomekwi in the Turkana Basin, eastern Africa.
(The ridge also has a secondary rift valley running its length.) The width is an average taken along the spreading ridges (Georgia–Senegal, Brazil – Bight of Benin, etc.). The greatest depth is the Romanche Trench. (The Puerto Rico Trench is not part of the rift system.) Great Rift Valley: 6,000 km (3,700 mi) 220 km (140 mi) 2 km (1 mi)
The Great Rift Valley is part of an intra-continental ridge system that runs through Kenya from north to south. It is part of the Gregory Rift , the eastern branch of the East African Rift , which starts in Tanzania to the south and continues northward into Ethiopia . [ 1 ]
The half grabens may have alternating polarities along the rift axis, dividing the rift valley into segments. [ 4 ] Intracontinental and marine rift basins such as the Gulf of Suez , East African Rift , Rio Grande rift system and the North Sea often contain a series of half-graben sub-basins, with the polarity of the dominant fault system ...
The Great Rift Valley (Swahili: Bonde la ufa) is a series of contiguous geographic depressions, approximately 6,000 or 7,000 kilometres (4,300 mi) in total length, the definition varying between sources, that runs from the southern Turkish Hatay Province in Asia, through the Red Sea, to Mozambique in Southeast Africa.
The Gregory Rift in the Great Rift Valley is named in his honour. He visited central Kenya in 1893 and again in 1919 and his 1896 book The Great Rift Valley is considered a classic. He was the first to use the term "rift valley", which he defined as "a linear valley with parallel and almost vertical sides, which has fallen owing to a series of ...
The Southern Rift Valley lakes are like the Western Rift Valley lakes in that, with one exception, they are freshwater lakes. Lake Rukwa (about 5,670 square kilometres (2,190 sq mi) but quite variable) in Tanzania is the alkaline exception, lying south-east of Tanganyika, and has no outlet.