How do plates form a rift valley?

How do plates form a rift valley?

Plates at our planet’s surface move because of the intense heat in the Earth’s core that causes molten rock in the mantle layer to move. It moves in a pattern called a convection cell that forms when warm material rises, cools, and eventually sink down.

What type of plate movement can cause a rift valley?

Areas where plates are colliding form convergent boundaries, and areas where plates are expanding create divergent boundaries. Rift valleys are formed by divergent boundaries that involve continental plates.

How did the East African Rift Valley form?

Twenty-five million years ago, as plate tectonics began to pull apart eastern Africa, the landscape that would eventually be home to the first humans began to take shape. The East African Rift Valley, as the region is known, formed where the Somalian and Nubian plates are pulling away from the Arabian Plate.

How do tectonic plates move ks3?

It is now thought that plate movement is driven by a mechanism called slab pull. Slab pull occurs where older, denser tectonic plates sink into the mantle. The plates are like giant rafts that slowly move around. At the boundaries between plates, molten magma is able to force its way to the surface and escape as lava .

What is plate tectonic rifting?

Rifting is defined as the splitting apart of a single tectonic plate into two or more tectonic plates separated by divergent plate boundaries. The rifting of a continental tectonic plate creates normal fault valleys, small tilted block mountains, and volcanism. The process is illustrated in Fig. 5.4.

Where do rift basins form?

Major rifts occur along the central axis of most mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust and lithosphere is created along a divergent boundary between two tectonic plates. Failed rifts are the result of continental rifting that failed to continue to the point of break-up.

What type of plate boundary formed the East African Rift Valley?

divergent plate boundary
The East African Rift Valley (EAR) is a developing divergent plate boundary in East Africa. Here the eastern portion of Africa, the Somalian plate, is pulling away from the rest of the continent, that comprises the Nubian plate.

What type of plate boundary is a rift valley?

Many rift valleys are part of “ triple junction s,” a type of divergent boundary where three tectonic plates meet at about 120° angles. Two arms of the triple junction can split to form an entire ocean. The third, “failed rift” or aulacogen, may become a rift valley.

What is the difference between a glacial valley and an Rift Valley?

Rift valleys differ from river valley s and glacial valley s in that they are created by tectonic activity and not the process of erosion. Tectonic plate s are huge, rocky slabs of Earth’s lithosphere —its crust and upper mantle.

What type of geologic activity creates the underwater rift valley?

Geologic activity beneath the underwater rift valley creates these vents, which spew super-heated water and vent fluid s into the ocean. Very few active rift valleys are found on continental lithosphere. The East African Rift, the Baikal Rift Valley, the West Antarctic Rift, and the Rio Grande Rift are Earth’s major active continental rift valleys.

Are there any active rift valleys in the continental lithosphere?

Very few active rift valleys are found on continental lithosphere. The East African Rift, the Baikal Rift Valley, the West Antarctic Rift, and the Rio Grande Rift are Earth’s major active continental rift valleys. The East African Rift is part of the “Great Rift Valley” system discussed below.

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