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Great Rift Valley
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. While the name remains in some usages, it is rarely used in geology where the term "Afro-Arabian Rift System" is preferred.
This valley extends southward from Western Asia into the eastern part of Africa, where several deep, elongated lakes, called ribbon lakes, exist on the rift valley floor, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika being two such examples. The region has a unique ecosystem and contains a number of Africa's wildlife parks.
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. Geologists generally refer to these evolving plates as the Nubian plate and the Somali plate.
Today these rifts and faults are seen as distinct, although connected. Originally, the Great Rift Valley was thought to be a single feature that extended from Lebanon[dubious – discuss] in the north to Mozambique in the south, where it constitutes one of two distinct physiographic provinces of the East African mountains. It included what today is called the Lebanese section[dubious – discuss] of the Dead Sea Transform (Turkey to Straits of Tiran[dubious – discuss]), the Jordan Rift Valley (geographic term for section including entire course of the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the Arabah Valley), Red Sea Rift, and the East African Rift. These rifts and faults are considered to having been formed 35 million years ago.
The northernmost part of the Rift corresponds to the central[dubious – discuss] section of what is today called the Dead Sea Transform (DST) or Rift. This midsection of the DST forms the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, separating the Mount Lebanon range from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Further south it is known as the Hula Valley separating the Galilee mountains and the Golan Heights.[failed verification][clarification needed]
The Jordan River begins here and flows southward through Lake Hula into the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The Rift then continues south through the Jordan Rift Valley into the Dead Sea, on the Israeli-Jordanian border. From the Dead Sea southwards, the Rift is occupied by the Wadi Arabah, then the Gulf of Aqaba, and then the Red Sea.
Off the southern tip of Sinai in the Red Sea, the Dead Sea Transform meets the Red Sea Rift which runs the length of the Red Sea. The Red Sea Rift comes ashore to meet the East African Rift and the Aden Ridge, in the Afar Depression of East Africa. The junction of these three rifts is called the Afar triple junction.
The East African Rift follows the Red Sea to the end before turning inland into the Ethiopian highlands, dividing the country into two large and adjacent but separate mountainous regions. In Kenya, Uganda, and the fringes of South Sudan, the Great Rift runs along two separate branches that are joined to each other only at their southern end, in Southern Tanzania along its border with Zambia. The two branches are called the Western Rift Valley and the Eastern Rift Valley.
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Great Rift Valley
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. While the name remains in some usages, it is rarely used in geology where the term "Afro-Arabian Rift System" is preferred.
This valley extends southward from Western Asia into the eastern part of Africa, where several deep, elongated lakes, called ribbon lakes, exist on the rift valley floor, Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika being two such examples. The region has a unique ecosystem and contains a number of Africa's wildlife parks.
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. Geologists generally refer to these evolving plates as the Nubian plate and the Somali plate.
Today these rifts and faults are seen as distinct, although connected. Originally, the Great Rift Valley was thought to be a single feature that extended from Lebanon[dubious – discuss] in the north to Mozambique in the south, where it constitutes one of two distinct physiographic provinces of the East African mountains. It included what today is called the Lebanese section[dubious – discuss] of the Dead Sea Transform (Turkey to Straits of Tiran[dubious – discuss]), the Jordan Rift Valley (geographic term for section including entire course of the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the Arabah Valley), Red Sea Rift, and the East African Rift. These rifts and faults are considered to having been formed 35 million years ago.
The northernmost part of the Rift corresponds to the central[dubious – discuss] section of what is today called the Dead Sea Transform (DST) or Rift. This midsection of the DST forms the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, separating the Mount Lebanon range from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. Further south it is known as the Hula Valley separating the Galilee mountains and the Golan Heights.[failed verification][clarification needed]
The Jordan River begins here and flows southward through Lake Hula into the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The Rift then continues south through the Jordan Rift Valley into the Dead Sea, on the Israeli-Jordanian border. From the Dead Sea southwards, the Rift is occupied by the Wadi Arabah, then the Gulf of Aqaba, and then the Red Sea.
Off the southern tip of Sinai in the Red Sea, the Dead Sea Transform meets the Red Sea Rift which runs the length of the Red Sea. The Red Sea Rift comes ashore to meet the East African Rift and the Aden Ridge, in the Afar Depression of East Africa. The junction of these three rifts is called the Afar triple junction.
The East African Rift follows the Red Sea to the end before turning inland into the Ethiopian highlands, dividing the country into two large and adjacent but separate mountainous regions. In Kenya, Uganda, and the fringes of South Sudan, the Great Rift runs along two separate branches that are joined to each other only at their southern end, in Southern Tanzania along its border with Zambia. The two branches are called the Western Rift Valley and the Eastern Rift Valley.