African Plate - Modern Movements

Modern Movements

The African Plate is rifting in the eastern interior along the East African Rift. This rift zone separates the Nubian Plate to the west from the Somali Plate to the east. One hypothesis proposes the existence of a mantle plume beneath the Afar region, while an opposing hypothesis asserts that the rifting is merely a zone of maximum weakness where the African Plate is deforming as plates to its east are moving rapidly northward.

The African Plate's speed is estimated at around 2.15 cm (0.85 in) per year. It has been moving over the past 100 million years or so in a general northeast direction. This is drawing it closer to the Eurasian Plate, causing subduction where oceanic crust is converging with continental crust (e.g. portions of the central and eastern Mediterranean). 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 the Azores-Gibraltar Fault Zone. Along its northeast margin, the African Plate is bounded by the Red Sea Rift where the Arabian Plate is moving away from the African Plate.

The New England hotspot in the Atlantic Ocean has probably created a short line of mid to late-Tertiary age seamounts on the African Plate but appears to be currently inactive.