African continent splitting into two parts
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There are signs that a big part of East Africa is breaking away from the African continent. Scientists studied a deep crack that runs along a large part of Zambia. The crack is called a rift. It is a fault in the rock under Earth's surface. A geologist from Oxford University is studying it. He believes it shows that a giant piece of land is breaking away. He wrote: "There is evidence that the fault… is active and therefore the Southwest African Rift Zone is too." He warned that this may be an early sign of the break-up of sub-Saharan Africa.
The land on Earth is always moving. Three hundred million years ago, there was one supercontinent, called Pangea. Over millions of years, Pangea broke up. Giant areas of land slowly moved across the oceans to become the continents we know today. Rifts are one reason why land masses split apart. The rift in Zambia is part of a 2,500-kilometre-long crack. The rift is moving at a rate of about 4.7 mm per year. At this rate, it will take millions of years for Africa to split in two. Scientists believe that in 200 million years, there could be just one supercontinent again.
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