Somali plate

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Course of the Great African Rift Valley

The Somali Plate is a pre-formed tectonic plate that will be formed over the next 100,000 to 200,000 years due to the Great African Rift Valley . It includes the Horn of Africa and surrounding waters ( Gulf of Aden , Indian Ocean , see map).

A drift to the southeast is assumed with regard to hotspots assumed to be stationary at a speed of around 45 mm / year. In a few million years, Eastern Africa will be split off from the rest of the continent and form a new land mass of its own .

See also

literature

  • Charles DeMets, Richard G. Gordon, Jean-Yves Royer: Motion between the Indian, Capricorn and Somalian plates since 20Ma: implications for the timing and magnitude of distributed lithospheric deformation in the equatorial Indian ocean . In: Geophys. J. Int. tape 161 , 2005, pp. 445–468 , doi : 10.1111 / j.1365-246X.2005.02598.x ( online article; PDF file; 8.5 MB ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jean Chorowicz: The East African rift system . In: Journal of African Earth Sciences . tape 43, 1–3 , 2005, pp. 379-410 , doi : 10.1016 / j.jafrearsci.2005.07.019 .
  2. ↑ Emerick, CM, Age progressive volcanism in the Comores Archipelago and Northern Madagascar , Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, Dissertation, 1985, bibcode : 1985PhDT ......... 5E .