Tannis McCartney G\u201917<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cWe collected data during a month-long research cruise aboard a converted container ship on Lake Malawi,\u201d says Scholz, a leader in sedimentary basin analysis of extensional systems. \u201cFor the first time, a crustal-scale seismic source was deployed on an African lake, revealing tantalizing, new details about the stratigraphic and structural evolution of the East African Rift System.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tectonic plates are huge slabs of crust and mantle that are constantly in motion, often crashing into, grinding against or falling beneath one another, causing earthquakes in the process. When this happens, the plates tear apart to form a lowland region known as a rift valley.<\/p>\n
One of the world\u2019s largest rift valleys is the EAR, approximately 3,700 miles long and 30-40 miles wide. The rift valley is so big that it is slowly splitting Africa in two. The larger Nubian tectonic plate encompasses most of the continent, whereas the smaller Somali plate carries the Horn of Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe EAR is considered the cradle of humanity,\u201d Scholz says. \u201cDuring its formation more than 25 million years ago, the region underwent considerable rifting, altering its rivers, lakes and climate, and setting the stage for the evolution of primates and humans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within the EAR are two valley systems, one of which is the Western Rift. This system is home to a chain of enormous lakes and wetlands, including Lake Malawi. Bordered by Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique, Lake Malawi has a surface area of more than 11,400 square miles, making it the ninth-largest freshwater body of water in the world. It also is Africa\u2019s third-largest lake, and, at 2,300 feet, its second deepest.<\/p>\n
Lake Malawi is known for its more than one thousand species of cichlid fish\u2014diversification likely triggered by shifting environmental forces. Scholz recently made headlines when he confirmed that water levels in Lake Malawi have ebbed and flowed approximately two-dozen times, sometimes by as much as 600 feet, over the past million years.<\/p>\n
Scholz explains that a rift is a fracture in the Earth\u2019s surface that widens over time. \u201cIn East Africa, rifting has created a series of narrow, deep rift valleys that contains some of the world\u2019s largest freshwater lakes,\u201d he says. Although these lakes stem from millions of years of tectonic stretching and thinning, Lake Malawi is relatively young. Based on analyses carried out by McCartney, the lake\u2019s rift basin probably was formed about 8 million years ago. \u201cDeep-water conditions didn\u2019t persist until around 4 million years later, when freshwater flooded the rift valley,\u201d Scholz adds.<\/p>\n
In 2015, Scholz and a team of colleagues imaged geologic structures and recorded earthquakes beneath Lake Malawi. They did this using a supply of \u201cair guns,\u201d generating soundwaves that were recorded by pressure sensors within a 5,000-foot-long cable towed behind their converted research vessel. (The erstwhile container ship boasted a lab, generators, compressors and heavy equipment for towing the seismic source.) Data collected by the cable\u2019s sensors were compared to that collected by dozens of seismometers onshore and on the bottom of the lake.<\/p>\n
The team returned to Syracuse with loads of geophysical, geological and geochemical data. Little did they know how much of it was truly groundbreaking. McCartney, in fact, based her doctoral dissertation on it. \u201cThe data are helping us answer key questions about the origin and role of magma during early rifting, the formation and evolution of rift segmentation and its manifestation in the crust and upper mantle,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Much of the team\u2019s work has focused on understanding the shapes and the extent of the rift-forming faults, which produce topographic depressions called half-grabens. When the Earth\u2019s crust pulls apart, the lithosphere extends\u2014in the case of Lake Malawi, less than an inch per year\u2014and creates a rift. \u201cWe now have conclusive evidence of fault migration away from the border fault of the half-graben,\u201d McCartney adds. \u201cWe also know that faults in the hangingwall [the section of the rift under the lake, itself], have lengthened over the past million years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scholz hopes the findings will provide a unified geologic framework for anyone exploring the EAR system, and will shed light on other continental rift systems\u2014even ancient ones, such as rift basins along the eastern coast of North America.<\/p>\n
The Malawi government is interested in the rift\u2019s potential for commercial quantities of oil and natural gas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe presence of working hydrocarbon systems in young rift-lake basins\u2014those a few million years in age\u2014has spurred extensive exploration interest in the Great Rift Valley,\u201d Scholz says. \u201cThe scientific discoveries emerging from the NSF study are purely academic in nature, but governments in the region are using the findings to help identify energy resources for some of the world\u2019s poorest people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many researchers consider the EAR\u2014and, by extension, Lake Malawi\u2014one of the best-expressed examples of a continent in the early stages of break-up. \u201cEast Africa always has been a hotbed of evolution,\u201d Scholz concludes. \u201cPlate tectonics and climate variability have not only transformed its landscape, but also dictated our ancestors\u2019 development and dispersal from Africa to the rest of the world. We\u2019re witnessing evolution, in every respect of the word.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over two billion barrels of Oil have been discovered in the Albertine basin and South Lokichar basin in Uganda and Kenya respectively as well as huge amounts of natural gas and the recent large helium gas discovery.<\/p>\n
The EAR runs from the Afar Triple Junction in the Afar Triangle of Ethiopia through eastern Africa, terminating in Mozambique.The EAR transects through Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Mozambique. It also runs offshore of the coast of Mozambique along the Kerimba and Lacerda grabens, which are joined by the Davie Ridge, a 2200\u00a0km-long relic fracture zone that cuts across the West Somali basin, straddling the boundary between Tanzania and Mozambique.<\/p>\n
Source:\u00a0Syracuse University News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Researchers in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University have published new details about the evolution of the East African Rift (EAR) Valley, one of the world\u2019s largest … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":5504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,11],"tags":[5698,5686,5692,5695,671,5688,5691,5690,5689,5694,5699,1088,5696,5670,1488,1636,1696,5693,2272,5687,5697,2466],"class_list":["post-5503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-by-others","category-top-news","tag-christopher-scholz","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-data","tag-ear-system","tag-east-africa","tag-east-africa-rift-valley","tag-geochemical","tag-geological","tag-geophysical","tag-great-rift-valley","tag-helium-gas","tag-horn-of-africa","tag-journal-of-structural-geology","tag-lake-malawi","tag-malawi","tag-mozambique","tag-natural-gas","tag-nubian-tectonic-plate","tag-seismic","tag-syracuse-university","tag-tannis-mccartney-g17","tag-tanzania","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.oilnewskenya.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/east-africa-rift-valley.jpg?fit=1600%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JWkQ-1qL","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4770,"url":"https:\/\/www.oilnewskenya.com\/index.php\/cgg-geoconsulting-launches-east-africa-rift-system-basinmap\/","url_meta":{"origin":5503,"position":0},"title":"CGG GeoConsulting Launches East Africa Rift System BasinMap","author":"","date":"June 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"CGG GeoConsulting\u2019s NPA Satellite Mapping group has launched the multi-client\u00a0EARS BasinMap\u00a0for exploration de-risking across the vast region of East Africa, from regional-to-prospect or play scale. 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Thanks to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "News by others"","block_context":{"text":"News by others","link":"https:\/\/www.oilnewskenya.com\/index.php\/category\/news-by-others\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12610,"url":"https:\/\/www.oilnewskenya.com\/index.php\/toshiba-ess-kengen-conclude-mou-on-om-services-for-geothermal-power-plants\/","url_meta":{"origin":5503,"position":2},"title":"Toshiba ESS, KenGen Conclude MoU on O&M Services for Geothermal Power Plants","author":"","date":"September 1, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Kenya Electricity Generating Company\u00a0 (KenGen) and Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions Corporation (Toshiba ESS) concluded a memorandum of understanding (MOU). 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