the.com/great rift valley
Earth tearing itself apart in slow motion, future ocean in the making.
means A massive crack in the Earth's crust stretching through East Africa where two tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart, creating a dramatic trench of lakes, volcanoes, and escarpments.
from The 'rift' comes from Old Norse 'ript' or 'rift,' meaning a breach or split, which entered English describing literal tears or fissures. The geological term 'rift valley' emerged in the 1800s as geologists mapped the depression running from the Middle East down through East Africa, recognizing it as the visible surface scar of two tectonic plates — the Nubian and Somali — dragging apart. 'Great' was simply added to mark its scale: this isn't a crack, it's thousands of miles of them, linked into one of the planet's longest continuous fractures.
- speed
- continents splitting a few millimeters yearly
- future
- will eventually flood into a new sea
- origin story
- cradle of early human fossils, Lucy included
- scale
- stretches roughly 4,000 miles across east africa