![\"Lava](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/danakil-depression-extremely-harsh-arid-998699575.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n7<\/p>\n
The East African Rift System drives volcanic activity in places like the Erta Ale volcano in EthiopiaCredit: Getty 7<\/p>\n Damage caused by the rift at an intersection in Maai Mahiu-NarokCredit: Nation 7<\/p>\n Scientists previously thought Africa’s tectonic plates<\/a>, which collided to form large mountains and pulled apart to create vast basins, were simply moving apart again.<\/p>\n But a new study<\/a> from the University of Glasgow<\/a> <\/a>suggests that intense volcanic activity<\/a> deep underground may be fuelling the divide. <\/p>\n A gigantic superplume of hot rock, roughly 1,800 miles (2,900km) beneath the Earth’s <\/a>surface, is pushing up against the African crust and fracturing it. <\/p>\n Professor Fin Stuart, of the University of Glasgow and\u00a0the Scottish <\/a>Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC), led the project.<\/p>\n READ MORE ON EARTH SCIENCE<\/p>\n He said: “We have long been interested in how the deep Earth rises to surface, how much is transported, and just what role it plays on forming the large-scale topography <\/a>of the Earth’s surface. <\/p>\n “Our research suggests that a giant hot blob of rock from the core-mantle boundary is present beneath East Africa, it is driving the plates apart and propping up the Africa <\/a>continent so it hundreds of metres higher than normal.”<\/p>\n Experts suspected as much back in 2023, but geologists have now detected volcanic gases that back up the theory.<\/p>\n The Meengai geothermal field in central Kenya has a chemical signature that comes from deep inside Earth’s mantle, matching those found in volcanic rocks to the north, in the Red Sea, and to the south, in Malawi. <\/p>\n The discovery indicates that all these locations are sat atop the same deep mantle rock, according to experts.<\/p>\n Inside active volcano where world’s largest ACID lake is buried – so dangerous it melts human skin & spews blue lava<\/p>\n Study co-author, Biying Chen, of the University of Edinburgh <\/a>and\u00a0SUERC, said: “These gases from our geothermal wells have provide valuable new insight into the Earth\u2019s deep interior.”<\/p>\n Chen added that the findings will help researchers to understand both the geological forces shaping East Africa and “the fundamental processes which drive the formation of our planet\u2019s surface over millions of years”.<\/p>\n 7<\/p>\n The split would create a new oceanCredit: Getty<\/p>\n The East African Rift System (EARS) is the\u00a0largest active\u00a0continental rift system on Earth. <\/p>\n It is in the process of ripping through around 2,175miles (3,500km) of Africa.\u00a0<\/p>\n Continental rifting is nothing new for Earth – and is the reason why we have seven continents today.<\/p>\n Roughly 240 million years ago, long before humans roamed, Earth was home to just one supercontinent known as Pangaea.<\/p>\n The Scottish Highlands, the Appalachians, and the Atlas Mountains were actually all part of the same mountain range on Pangaea, but were torn apart by continental drift.<\/p>\n In January, Ken Macdonald, a professor at the University of California, warned the continent was splitting at a faster rate than expected.<\/a><\/p>\n Somalia and parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania will form a distinct continent, accompanied by a fresh coastline.<\/p>\n The split would create a new ocean, and a small new continent that he said could be called the “Nubian continent”.<\/p>\n “What might happen is that the waters of the Indian Ocean would come in and flood what is now the East African Rift Valley,” Ken Macdonald, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the\u00a0Mail Online.<\/a><\/p>\n The new ocean could become as deep as the Atlantic if waters continue to flow into the area, added Macdonald.<\/p>\n 7<\/p>\n A deep chasm next to a repaired section of road that had been washed away during a heavy downpour at Maai-Mahiu in 2018, around 54km southwest of Nairobi capital NakuruCredit: Getty – Contributor 7<\/p>\n Women work on their farm near a chasm suspected to have been caused by a heavy downpour along an underground fault-line near the Rift Valley town of Mai Mahiu, Kenya March 28, 2018. Picture taken March 28, 2018. REUTERS\/Thomas MukoyaCredit: Reuters \/ Thomas Mukoya 7<\/p>\n Continental rifting is nothing new for Earth – and is the reason why we have seven continents todayCredit: Getty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFRICA is splitting apart – meaning the continent will form two separate land masses with an ocean in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2740,875,918,209,70,712,1897,1898,16,15,1899],"class_list":{"0":"post-138507","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-earth","10":"tag-glasgow","11":"tag-longtail","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-section-techscience","15":"tag-space-and-astronomy","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-weird-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114585234898115023","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Aerial](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/earth-forming-sixth-ocean-due-966296459.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Illustration](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/JF-US-AFRICA-SPLIT-MAP-v2_2ef8c8.jpg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Women](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/RTRMADP_KENYA-ENVIRONMENT_2109328420_RC133FEE1710_2018-03-29T124330Zjpg-JS395539138.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Lava](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/active-volcano-ethiopia-998699597.jpg\")
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