East Africa's Rift Nears Continental Split as Crust Thinness Advances
Scientists report that the Turkana Rift beneath East Africa has thinned to a critical point, a stage called necking that signals the continent is gradually breaking apart and could eventually form a new ocean. Center rift crust is about 13 kilometers thick, with surrounding areas over 35 kilometers, and the thinning indicates continued rifting on a timescale of millions of years. This tectonic activity also helps explain why the region preserves an unusually rich fossil record of human evolution, as subsidence and sedimentation favored fossil preservation.
