There are signs that a huge part East Africa is starting to break from the African continent. Geologists (people who study the Earth and its land and rocks) studied a deep crack that runs a large part Zambia. The crack is called a rift. It is a major fault the rock that covers Earth's surface. Geologist Mike Daly of the University of Oxford is studying Zambia's Kafue Rift. He believes there is activity the rift that suggests a giant piece of land is breaking away. He wrote: "There is evidence that the fault boundary the Kafue Rift is active and therefore the Southwest African Rift Zone is too." He warned that this "may be an early indication the break-up of sub-Saharan Africa".
The land Earth is constantly moving. Three hundred million years ago, there was just one huge supercontinent. It was called Pangea. Over millions years, Pangea broke . Giant areas of land slowly moved the oceans to form the continents we know today. This movement is called continental drift. Rifts are one reason why land masses split apart. The Kafue Rift Zambia is part a 2,500-kilometre-long rift zone stretching from Tanzania to Namibia. The rift is moving a rate of about 4.7 mm per year. At this rate, it will take millions years for Africa to split in two. Scientists believe that 200 million years now, there could be just one supercontinent again.
