资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

Southern Africa is typically considered to belong to a single tectonic plate, Nubia,despite active faulting along the southwestern branch of the East African Rift System. We analyse regional GNSS measurements, and find that the ‘San’ microplate, situated south of the southwestern branch of the East African Rift, is statistically distinct from Nubia, with 0.4-0.7 mm/yr of extension across the boundary. Adding 9 new campaign GNSS sites, we show that the extension rate across the southern Malawi Rift is 2.2 ± 0.3 mm/yr, with 75% of the relative velocity occurring over 890 km, despite the surface expression of faulting being for the first time, we use geodetic measurements to describe the accommodation of strain in broad zones between Archean cratons in southern Africa’s thick continental lithosphere.