Geodynamics

East Africa

Building the Earth in a sandbox

Conor Farrell and edited by Michaël Pons January 7, 2026

Building the Earth in a sandbox The Main Ethiopian Rift stretches for hundreds of kilometers through Ethiopia, a massive fracture where Africa is slowly tearing apart to birth a new ocean. However, the processes driving this continental breakup remain hidden deep beneath layers of volcanic rock and millions of years of geological history. Today, in a laboratory in the heart of the be ...[Read More]

What controls Victoria microplate rotation in the East African Rift?

Editorial team 1 July 15, 2020

Clouds reflecting in lake Magadi, Kenya, located in the Eastern Branch of the East African Rift System. The high rising flanks of the Rift’s border faults can be seen in the background. (Credit: Corinna Kalich, University of Potsdam)

This week in News & Views, Anne Glerum, postdoc at GFZ Potsdam, discusses how her numerical models support a lithosphere-driven mechanism for the rotation of large continental microplates, like Victoria in the East African Rift System. The East African Rift System (EARS) is a newly forming divergent boundary between the Nubian and Somalian plates (Fig. 1). The plate boundary system includes se ...[Read More]