East African Rift System

Geological feature, Africa-Asia

East African Rift System, also called Afro-Arabian Rift

Valley,

one of the most extensive

rifts on the Earths surface, extending from Jordan in southwestern Asia southward through
eastern Africa to Mozambique. The system is some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) long and
averages 3040 miles (4864 km) wide.

The system
consists of two branches. The main branch, the Eastern Rift Valley (often called the Great
Rift Valley, or Rift Valley), extends along the entire length of the system. In the north the rift is
occupied by theJordan River, the Dead Sea, and the Gulf of Aqaba. It continues
southward along the Red Sea and into the Ethiopian Denakil Plain to
Lakes Rudolf (Turkana), Naivasha, and Magadi in Kenya. The rift is less obvious
through Tanzania, because the eastern rim is much eroded, but it continues southward
through the Shire River valley and Mozambique Plain to the coast of the Indian Ocean near
Beira, Mozambique. The western branch of the system, the Western Rift Valley, extends

northward from the northern end of Lake Nyasa (Lake Malawi) in a great arc that includes
the Lakes Rukwa, Tanganyika, Kivu, Edward, and Albert. Most of the lakes in the rift
system are deep and fjordlike, some with their floors well below sea level.

The plateaus
adjacent to the rift generally slope upward toward the valley and provide an average
drop of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet (600 to 900 m) to the valley floor. In some places,
such as the Gikuyu and Mau escarpments, the drop averages more than 9,000 feet
(2,700 m). The rift has been forming for some 30,000,000 years (as Africa and the
Arabian Peninsula separated) and has been accompanied by extensive volcanism
along parts of its length, producing such massifs as Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya.