Great Rift Valley

High school (ages 12+)
Geography

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Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/great-rift-valley

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. How long is Great Rift Valley?4,300 miles (6,000-7,000 kilometers)
2. What is the geological classification?A continental rift system, part of the larger Afro-Arabian Rift System
3. Where does the Great Rift Valley start and end?It begins in Turkey, goes through the Red Sea, and continues down to Mozambique in East Africa.
4. Why are there so many lakes in the Great Rift Valley?The valley is made of faulted blocks that sink, creating deep basins where lakes form, like Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika.

Continental Rifting: The process by which continental lithosphere is stretched and thinned, leading to the formation of rift valleys and potentially new ocean basins.
Divergent Plate Boundary: An area where tectonic plates move away from each other, characterized by rifting, volcanism, and the creation of new crust.
Graben: A down-dropped block of crustal material bounded by two parallel normal faults, forming a valley floor in a rift system.
Mantle Plume: An upwelling of abnormally hot rock from deep within the Earth's mantle, which can cause thinning and rifting of the overlying lithosphere.