Marnie Chesterton

No need for alarm.

You know, we're still talking about many, many millions of years.

Yeah, so no beach for your cousin in Tikana.

So how did the scientists find this out?

Okay, so amongst the methods that have been used, first they've been using GPS and satellite imaging.

So scientists have observed that parts of East Africa are moving apart and this is by a few millimetres each year.

Now this has showed that the continent is under tension.

Also, earthquakes have revealed where the crust is breaking and stretching.

Now, geologists found long fault escapements and stretched rock formations that look exactly like materials that are undergoing extension and thinning.

And this thinning is what we called necking now.

Okay.

Do we know why this is happening?

They think several things are happening at once.

Now, one major factor is that the area, Turkana, already contains ancient geological scars.

Very old tectonic fractures and also failed drifts that weakened the crust long before even the current drifting began.

There's also intense heat that's rising from deep beneath East Africa as a whole.

Now, that heat, it makes the crust easier to stretch, easier to fracture and also deform.

Okay.

Hence also the place that you want to have your geothermal power plant.

So millions of years down the road, when these plates eventually do split, what's it going to look like?