rifting

Unraveling volcanic patterns between adjacent rift zones

Valentina Armeni and edited by Lorenzo Mantiloni July 16, 2025

The Sleeping Warrior volcano, located near Lake Elementaita in the Kenya Rift (East African Rift System). Its profile, shaped by erosion and tectonic activity, resembles a sleeping Maasai warrior, which is why it got its name.

Continental rifts are a prime example of how the forces at work beneath our feet are constantly shaping our world, and often host volcanic activity. The patterns and distribution of volcanism in rift settings, however, is far from intuitive. The picture gets even more complicated if we look between the segments that often make up a rift. This week, Valentina Armeni from the University of Potsdam, ...[Read More]

Travel log – The Kenya rift

Editorial team 1 May 1, 2019

View from Subukia viewpoint into the rift valley with the opposite rift shoulders in the background. Pencil for scale. Courtesy of Corinna Kallich, Potsdam University.

A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to join a field trip to the Kenya rift organized by Potsdam University and Roma III. This rift is part of the active East African Rift System, which I introduced in a previous blog post. With a group of 25 enthusiastic participants from Roma Tre, Potsdam University, Nairobi University and GFZ Potsdam (we somehow always managed to make the 20-person bus ...[Read More]

Remarkable Regions – The Kenya Rift

Editorial team 1 June 13, 2018

Image Credit: modified by Anne Glerum after NASA Earth Observatory/Joshua Stevens.

Every 8 weeks we turn our attention to a Remarkable Region that deserves a spot in the scientific limelight. After looking at several convergent plate boundaries, this week the focus lies on part of a nascent divergent plate boundary: the Kenya Rift. The post is by postdoctoral researcher Anne Glerum of GFZ Potsdam. Of course an active continental rift is worthy of the title “Remarkable Region”. A ...[Read More]

Finding the forces in continental rifting

Editorial Team 2 February 28, 2018

This week's Geodynamics 101 is on rifting and is by PhD padawan Luke Mondy (had to utilize some editorial license and go for the Star Wars puns). Font generated from flamingtext.com

The Geodynamics 101 series serves to showcase the diversity of research topics and methods in the geodynamics community in an understandable manner. We welcome all researchers – PhD students to Professors – to introduce their area of expertise in a lighthearted, entertaining manner and touch upon some of the outstanding questions and problems related to their fields. For our latest ‘Geodynam ...[Read More]