Between60 million years ago and10 million years ago, theSomali plate beganrifting from the African plate along theEast African Rift.[2] Since the continent of Africa consists of crust from both the African and the Somali plates, some literature refers to the African plate as theNubian plate to distinguish it from the continent as a whole.[3]
Tectonic dynamics in the Adriatic basin - The western limit of the Adriatic basin currently shifts by about 40 mm per year towards the east, under the thrust of the Eurasian plate, resulting in a gradual narrowing of the Adriatic Sea. The Po Valley is part of the African plate. (Text in Italian)
TheSaharan Metacraton has been tentatively identified as the remains of a craton that has become detached from the subcontinental lithospheric mantle, but alternatively may consist of a collection of unrelated crustal fragments swept together during the Pan-Africanorogeny.
In some areas, the cratons are covered bysedimentary basins, such as theTindouf Basin,Taoudeni Basin andCongo Basin, where the underlying archaic crust is overlaid by more recentNeoproterozoic sediments. The plate includesshear zones such as theCentral African Shear Zone (CASZ) where, in the past, two sections of the crust were moving in opposite directions, and rifts such as theAnza Trough where the crust was pulled apart, and the resulting depression filled with more modern sediment.
Today, the African plate is moving over Earth's surface at a speed of 32.51 km per million years relative to the Earth's "average"crust velocities (seeNNR-MORVEL56)Map of East Africa showing some of the historically active volcanoes (red triangles) and theAfar Triangle (shaded, center) – atriple junction where three plates are pulling away from one another: the Arabian plate, the African plate, and the Somali plate (USGS)
The African plate is rifting in the eastern interior of the African continent along theEast African Rift. This rift zone separates the African plate to the west from the Somali plate to the east. One hypothesis proposes amantle plume rising beneath theAfar region pushing the crust outward, whereas an opposing hypothesis explains the rifting by dynamics in the crust, as a break in the African plate along a line of maximum weakness as plates to its east move rapidly northward.
The African plate's speed is estimated at 2.15 cm (0.85 in) per year.[4] It has been moving over the past 100 million years or so in a general northeast direction. It is pushing closer to theEurasian plate, causingsubduction whereoceanic crust is converging withcontinental crust (e.g. portions of the central and easternMediterranean). In the western Mediterranean, the relative motions of the Eurasian and African plates produce a combination of lateral and compressive forces, concentrated in a zone known as theAzores–Gibraltar Fault Zone. Along its northeast margin, the African plate is bounded by theRed Sea Rift where theArabian plate is moving away from the African plate.
^Duncan, R.A. (1984). "Age progressive volcanism in the New England Seamounts and the opening of the central Atlantic Ocean".Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth.89 (B12):9980–90.Bibcode:1984JGR....89.9980D.doi:10.1029/jb089ib12p09980.
