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How are Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya connected to the East African Rift System?
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tectonic basins and rift valleys
Escarpments of the Great Rift Valley rising above the plain north of Samburu Game Preserve, central Kenya. Beisa oryxes graze in the foreground.
Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya are directly connected to the East African Rift System through the extensive volcanic activity that has accompanied the rift's formation over the last 30 million years.12
As the lithospheric plates in this region separate, the crust thins, allowing hot material from the asthenosphere to rise to shallow depths. This process has created large domes and triggered widespread eruptions along the rift's axis, particularly within the eastern branch of the system in Kenya and Tanzania. Consequently, these massive volcanic peaks were built up as a direct result of the same tectonic tensions and magmatic upwelling that continue to shape the rift valley today.312