Giant geological fault causes Africa to gradually split in two

A massive crack is spreading across thousands of kilometers, revealing the prospect of Africa being torn apart, shocking global geological research.

A giant superplate of hot rock is rising beneath Africa, causing intense volcanic activity and splitting the continent in two, according to experts. Geologists have long known that Africa is slowly splitting apart in a region called the East African Rift Valley (EARS), but the cause of this geological process has not been clear. Photo: Mike Korostelev via Getty Images.

A recent study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters has provided geochemical evidence that a superplate of hot rock is pushing up and cracking the African crust. Photo: Abstract Aerial Art/Getty Images.

The team found that gases at the Meengai geothermal field in central Kenya have a chemical signature that comes from deep within the Earth's mantle, likely between the bottom of the mantle and the core. Photo: Wiki Commons.

In a statement from the University of Glasgow in Scotland, the signal is similar to gases found in volcanic rocks as far north as the Red Sea and as far south as Malawi, suggesting that all of these locations are located on the same layer of rock deep in the mantle. Photo: Nation.

“The deep mantle signatures observed in different parts of EARS are very similar, suggesting they all come from a common deep source,” said Biying Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Geology at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Photo: Shutterstock/Naeblys.

The EARS is the largest active continental fault system on Earth, stretching some 3,500 km across Africa. The lithosphere, the rocky crust and upper mantle of the Earth have been gradually pulling apart across this fault for around 35 million years. This process has created a network of rifts that cut across the top of the continent from the Red Sea in northeast Africa to Mozambique in southern Africa. Photo: The Sun.

Previous research has identified the signature of deep mantle rock beneath the EARS using noble gases. Gases like helium and neon are rare and inert, meaning they don’t typically react chemically with other compounds. They also last a long time, so researchers can use them to track long-term geological processes. Image: Getty.

To clarify what was happening under the EARS, the team used high-precision equipment to look for neon (Ne) isotopes in the gases in Kenya, and they found a signature from deep in the mantle. The signature in the gases was very similar to the oldest surface signature in Hawaii - a site also located on a rock slab deep in the mantle. Photo: Getty - Contributor.

After carefully analyzing and evaluating the data, the team is confident that this signature is accurate and similar to the signature found in many other parts of the fault. According to postdoctoral researcher Chen, the EARS rock array likely originates from the core-mantle boundary, about 2,900 km deep inside the Earth. Photo: unn.ua.

"It is likely that a large mass of hot material rising from deep within the Earth replaced the original mantle beneath the EARS. As it rose and encountered the cooler solid lithosphere, it spread, generating enough force to crack the thin lithosphere, leading to intense volcanic activity in the region," said postdoctoral fellow Chen. Photo: unn.ua.

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