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A map of East Africa showing some of the historically active volcanoes (as red triangles) and the Afar Triangle (shaded at the center), which is a so-called triple junction (or triple point) where three plates are pulling away from one another: the Arabian plate and two parts of the African plate—the Nubian and Somali—splitting along the East African Rift Zone Main rift faults, plates ...
The term Great Rift Valley is most often used to refer to the valley of the East African Rift, the divergent plate boundary which extends from the Afar triple junction southward through eastern Africa, and is in the process of splitting the African plate into two new and separate plates.
Divergent boundaries are typified in the oceanic lithosphere by the rifts of the oceanic ridge system, including the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise, and in the continental lithosphere by rift valleys such as the famous East African Great Rift Valley. Divergent boundaries can create massive fault zones in the oceanic ridge system.
The Aden Ridge is a divergent plate boundary that divides the African (or Somali) and Arabian plate. It extends from the triple junction eastward to the Owen fracture zone, where it meets the Aden–Owen–Carlsberg triple junction between the African, Arabian, and Indo-Australian plates. The spreading rate for Aden Ridge is about 17 ...
This paradoxically results in divergence which was only incorporated in the theory of plate tectonics in 1970, but still results in net destruction when summed over major plate boundaries. [2] Divergent boundaries are areas where plates move away from each other, forming either mid-ocean ridges or rift valleys. These are also known as ...
This rift zone separates the African plate to the west from the Somali plate to the east. One hypothesis proposes a mantle plume rising beneath the Afar region pushing the crust outward, whereas an opposing hypothesis explains the rifting by dynamics in the crust, as a break in the African plate along a line of maximum weakness as plates to its ...
Researchers' new insight into the splitting process of the East Africa Rift systems show where an ocean will likely be formed if the continent's split continues.
The Somali-Antarctic boundary spreading ridge is known as the Southwest Indian Ridge. The western boundary with the African plate is diverging to form the East African Rift, which stretches south from the triple junction in the Afar depression. The southern boundary with the Nubian–African plate is a diffuse plate boundary with the Lwandle ...