rifting

Beyond ‘black and white’: rethinking continental drift and land bridges through plate tectonics and orogenic bridges

jbkoehl September 23, 2026

In this essay, Jean-Baptiste Koehl reflects on the origin of a 100-year-old divide within the geoscience community and explores how tectonics and paleontology may be brought closer together through the concept of orogenic bridges. Disclaimer: The reflections presented here reflect my perspective grounded in my own research and experience. One of the most iconic interdisciplinary achievement ...[Read More]

From rifts to reefs: the geodynamic origins of shallow coral reef habitats at passive continental margins

Zhibin Lei, edited by Michaël Pons and illustrated by Lea Pennacchioni July 22, 2026

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]

From Mountains to Oceans: How the memory of ancient orogens guides the rupture of continents

Kai Li and edited by Pauline Gayrin October 15, 2025

Picture showing an orogen that transform in a rift

In this new blog, Dr. Kai Li (GFZ Potsdam) talk about his PhD work, where he used accordion numerical models to explore the tectonic history of the South China Sea. His PhD research focuses on the impact of orogenic inheritance on rifts and rifted margins, employing advanced geodynamic modeling techniques. Have you ever tried to fit the west coast of Africa and the east coast of South America toge ...[Read More]

Unraveling volcanic patterns between adjacent rift zones

Valentina Armeni and edited by Lorenzo Mantiloni July 16, 2025

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

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

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

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]