East Africa\'s Great Rift Valley: A Complex Rift System

¶ … East Africa's Great Rift Valley: A Complex Rift System"

Wood and Guth's article, "East Africa's great rift valley..." details some of the lesser known facts about the shifting of the earth and how continents are formed. The authors are extremely enthusiastic about this topic, and write about it with a familiarity and adherence to scientific principles that edifies the reader. Although the subject matter is fairly dense and filled with unfamiliar vocabulary words, the authors do well to explicate their main points and bring a better understanding of this subject matter. As such, it is a decidedly valuable work of literature.

The main point of this article is to discuss the origins and the significance of rifts in Africa, specifically the Lake Albert Rift and the Albertine Rift (which collectively are known as the East African Rift), and the Ethiopian Rift (which along with the other two comprises the East African Rift system (Wood and Guth, no date). Rifts are cracks in the earth that eventually spread over periods of time, and account for the shaping of continents and the very land structure that exists on the earth. The authors explicate how rifts are produced, and eventually discuss some of the historical and contemporary significance of rifting from a geological perspective.

One of the chief strengths of the article is the knowledge that the authors have of the subject matter and their apparent ardor for it. Both of these facts are evinced in their discussion of how rifting occurs, which involves volcanic eruptions and "bulges" (Woods and Guth), which are spots where there is heat emanating from the earth in copious amounts. In explicating these facts, the authors are able to make well-known what are largely esoteric facts about some of nature's most important phenomena. The authors were able to stay focused on their topic and did not stray into any noticeable points of digression. Their article is actually bolstered fairly well by a series of illustrations which involve maps of different varieties to help provide a visual aid to some of their more cerebral points. These illustrations add to the article's overall clarity and cohesiveness.

The principle weakness with this article is that the authors wait too long to inform the reader of the pragmatic value of rifts and their creations. Although they are clearly enthusiastic about their topic, the reader does not quite understand why -- until he or she gets to the conclusion and the paragraph before it and the authors explain the anthropological significance of this phenomena. Prior to that, however, the article merely reads like a pair of zealots are simply acting like doctrinaires and spouting off a collection of little known facts for mere pedantic value. Additionally, there are some terms that the authors use and which they do not define, which makes it difficult for laymen readers to readily understand them For instance, when the authors refer to bulges they never clarify this term which, if one were to attempt to define it in the dictionary, would provide a definition that is not applicable to the author's usage of the word. Still, the erroneous assumptions that the authors make is that the recitation of mere facts regarding rifts is a point of interest to the reader without any practical association of this phenomena with contemporary or even historical relevance.