Afar triple junction

The Afar triple junction is a triple junction located along a divergent plate boundary dividing the Nubian, Somali, and Arabian plates. This area is considered a present-day example of continental rifting leading to seafloor spreading and producing an oceanic basin. Here, the Red Sea Rift meets the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift. The latter extends a total of 6,500 kilometers (4,000 mi) from the Afar Triangle to Mozambique.^[1]

The connecting three arms form a triple junction. The northernmost branching arm extends north through the Red Sea and into the Dead Sea, while the eastern arm extends through the Gulf of Aden and connects to the Mid-Indian Ocean ridge further to the east. Both of these rifting arms are below sea level and are similar to a mid-ocean ridge.^[1]

The third rifting arm runs south extending around 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi) through the countries of Kenya, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi and, finally, Mozambique. This southern rifting arm is better known as the East African Rift or the East African Rift System (EARS), when it includes the Afar Triangle.

At small scale, the tectonics of the Afar region is more complex than a textbook triple junction. An independent microplate, the Danakil (or Arrata) microplate, is found between the Afar rift and the Red Sea rift.^[2][3]