Tim Krok

Africa is slowly splitting in two – but this ‘crack’ in Kenya has little to do with it

This blog is about a news story from The Guardian published April 6, 2018.  The article discusses the newly formed enormous crack that has appeared in Kenya’s Rift Valley.  Stephen Hicks, the author of this article, is seismologist at the University of Southampton.  Right off the bat, Dr. Hicks is quick to call out other reputable news outlets, CNN being one of them, for creating an unnecessary panic regarding earthquake activity in Africa.  Since the crack is massive and is located along a newly-forming tectonic plate boundary, news sources are saying that Africa is being split into two by earthquakes.  However, Dr. Hicks intends to clear the air in this article.  He states that there has been limited expert commentary and minimal hard evidence regarding tectonic plate movement within these articles.

First, Dr. Hicks describes how the crack could not have been caused by seismic activity because the edges don’t seem to match, like two puzzle pieces would.  The land on both sides is flat also indicating lack of seismic activity.  If it were an earthquake, one side would be higher.  He then states that Kenya doesn’t have any official reports regarding seismic activity.  Evidence of soil bridges between the crack also give way to the fact that the crack was caused by sudden erosion and not an earthquake (Hicks, 2018).  Kenya has been experiencing heavy rains recently and this rainwater sinks deep into the ground.  The rainwater reaches a loose layer of volcanic ash from recent volcanic eruptions, causing the ground to cave in.  Many geologists agree with this conclusion and have seen this type of underground erosion before in Arizona (Hicks, 2018).  Dr. Hicks points out that the real seismic activity which is slowly splitting Africa apart is located along the East Africa Rift.  The continent is splitting apart at a rate less than 1 cm per year (Hicks, 2018).  More evidence can also be found around Mt Nyiragongo located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as Erta-Ale located in Ethiopia (Hicks, 2018).

In closing, I really appreciated how Dr. Hicks starts the article off by basically saying, “Don’t believe the hype!”  He uses hyperlinked text to include the websites he’s calling out, and I was surprised CNN was one of them.  It’s somewhat unsettling to think that news outlets just want to scare or shock us just so we can tune into them or subscribe to them.  When I had first heard of this news, I was at work and a coworker was reading the article aloud.  The article she was reading definitely sounded over-dramatized, saying that Africa will be split up sooner than we think.  When I got home and found this article, I felt some relief.  Africa may be splitting apart at a slow rate, but it’s good to know that this sudden and massive chasm is unrelated.

References

Hicks, S. (2018, April 06). Africa is slowly splitting in two – but this ‘crack’ in Kenya has little to do with it. Retrieved April 08, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2018/apr/06/africa-is-slowly-splitting-in-two-but-this-crack-in-kenya-rift-valley-has-little-to-do-with-it