Geophysicists Discover Surprising Cause Behind Rapid Expansion of a Famous Continental Rift
According to Live Science, the “mysterious object” is a massive superheated mushroom-shaped plume rising from an area near the Earth’s core. This “mushroom” has grown so large that it is distorting the Earth’s surface and will eventually split Africa along a path from the Red Sea to Mozambique.
The findings come from a study by geophysicist D. Sarah Stamps from Virginia Tech (USA) and her colleagues, based on twelve years of investigations into the East African Rift Valley.
A section of the East African Rift Valley, spanning multiple countries – (Photo: LIVE SCIENCE).
This valley has long been known as a massive crack in the Earth where this gigantic continent will eventually split in two. However, the driving forces behind this rift have remained a matter of speculation.
In the new study, the authors discovered that, in addition to the known perpendicular deformation moving east and west, there exists parallel deformation along the rift, moving northward. These surface movements are unusual and have never been observed elsewhere.
This anomaly has led to the identification of a hidden internal structure – a “mushroom” that is massive and deadly – rising through the Earth’s mantle (the layer just below the planet’s crust).
This “mushroom” is a type of massive mantle plume, previously often associated with smaller geological activities such as volcanic eruptions.
This new discovery indicates that mantle plumes play a significant role in the “transformation” of Earth’s continents, a process primarily driven by plate tectonics. Plate tectonics is when sections of the planet’s crust move, slide past one another, and carry the continents and oceans above them along.
