What is a rift valley?
A rift valley is created when two tectonic plates pull away from every other, leaving a low space in the middle. The Great Rift Valley is the high-quality acknowledged rift valley in the world. It covers a distance of over 6,000 kilometres (3,700 miles), stretching from northern Syria in West Asia to central Mozambique in East Africa. It started to form about 35 million years ago, when the African and Arabian tectonic plates started to pull apart. Even nowadays it is nevertheless growing, as East Africa slowly separates from the rest of Africa.
