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LITHOEN

Rift

East African Rift

Also known as East African Rift Zone, East African Rift System

A zone of active continental rifting in East Africa where the lithosphere is being stretched, fractured and intruded by rising magma — a candidate site of a future spreading centre.

Classification

setting
continental

How this record is known

1
Interpretation
Reached by reasoning from evidence, or produced by a named model.

1 of 1 claims on this page cite at least one registered source. Counts describe how each statement is known, not how likely it is to be true.

What Lithoen records

Each claim states how it is known and cites its evidence.

InferredA possible future ocean basin: continued rifting could split eastern Africa from the continent.

If spreading continues, the plates meeting in East Africa may separate completely, flooding the rift region and making East Africa the site of the Earth’s next major ocean.

  • assumption: Assumes present-day spreading processes continue.

Evidence support: Supported by the cited evidence one source

Evidence: Kious 1996 Primary authority

In the knowledge graph

Record last updated 2026-09-06. Corrections follow the published corrections policy; superseded claims are retained, never silently edited.