An ancient Ugandan Mountain Ice Cap Splits!
Won’t Be Long until the Mount of Olives Splits
Along the nor
thern rift valley link where Mount
Margherita Just Split on a South End of the Rift.
I’ve surveyed Israeli and African ends of this Rift.
I doubt if blame for the split is all global Warming.
I believe the major culprit is tectonic rift Spreading,
And upward movement of magma below Margherita
And its environs in Uganda section of the Rift Section,
That Caused the Ice to Melt AND the Mountain to Split.
See two paragraph excerpt ‘East Africa Great Rift Valley’
May 5, 2010
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Mount Margherita is the highest summit of the Ruwenzori Range in East Africa and the third highest in Africa (after Mounts Kilimanjaro and Kenya). Margherita Peak is the highest peak on Mount Stanley. It rises to 16,795 feet (5,119 m) between Lake Albert (Lake Mobutu Sese Seko) to the north and Lake Edward to the south on the Congo (Kinshasa)–Uganda border. It was first climbed in 1906 by an expedition led by Luigi Amedeo Abruzzi and was named for Queen Margherita of Italy.
BeginThree Paragraph Excerpt from the book “Uganda’s Great Rift Valley”
The whole of Eastern Africa resembles a collection of precious stones – shimmer ing
blue sapphires – scattered across a crumpled green-brown cloth.
These are not jewels of course (though they are equally accidents of geology) but a series of lakes. You will quickly notice something curious about them, for despite great variations in size and shape they form a strangely regular pattern. For on either side of the 68,800km2 Lake Victoria, the world’s second largest expanse of freshwater, a glittering pendant of lesser lakes dangles southwards.
Nature rarely creates patterns by accident and this is no exception. These lake chains are trapped within the two gigantic trenches of the EAST AFRICAN RIFT VALLEY SYSTEM; twin cracks in the earth’s crust which carve through Africa from the Red Sea to Mozambique for a distance of 5600km. To the west of Lake Victoria, a series of elongated lakes – Albert, Edward, Kivu, Tanganyika, Rukwa and Malawi – lie in the trough of the 3000km-long WESTERN RIFT VALLEY like a string of sausages to create one of the most obvious water patterns on earth. To the east, the EASTERN RIFT VALLEY of Kenya and Tanzania contains another, less blatant line of (mostly) smaller but more numerous lakes.
Rifting is what happens when adjacent tectonic plates move apart or (in this case) a single plate attempts to crack to form two plates.
The East African rift is not the only such feature on earth but it is the only really big one that can easily be visited. Other examples are inconveniently located beneath kilometres of water as mid-ocean trenches.
Only in East Africa can we see what a major rift valley is all about.
This book describes Uganda’s part of the Western Rift Valley; the 500km-long Albertine Rift between the Virunga volcanoes and Murchison Falls. Your first encounter is likely to be when you descend into its trough to visit the national parks of Queen Elizabeth, Semliki or Murchison Falls. You’ll quickly appreciate that this 40km-wide valley is no featureless expanse, but a vast and varied landscape; a collage of forests, swamps and grasslands; lakes and rivers; gorges; volcanic craters and hot springs, all enclosed between two parallel, mountainous escarpments. The equator cuts across the valley, parts of which are as low as 600m above sea level (a.s.l.) and temperatures are appropriately hot. Yet the landscape is dominated from all directions by the freezing, 5000m high snow peaks of the Rwenzori – a range known to the Ancient Greeks and Arabians as the Mountains of the Moon.
Begin Two Paragraph Excerpt from “East Africa’s Great Rift Valley: A Complex Rift System,” by James Wood and Alex Guth – Michigan Technological University
The exact mechanism of rift formation is an on-going debate among geologists and geophysicists. One popular model for the EARS assumes that elevated heat flow from the mantle (strictly the asthenosphere) is causing a pair of thermal “bulges” in central Kenya and the Afar region of north-central Ethiopia. These bulges can be easily seen as elevated highlands on any topographic map of the area. As these bulges form, they stretch and fracture the outer brittle crust into a series of normal faults forming the classic horst and graben structure of rift valleys. Most current geological thinking holds that bulges are initiated by mantle plumes under the continent HEATING THE OVERLAYING CRUST AND CAUSING IT TO EXPAND AND FRACTURE, Ideally the dominant fractures created occur in a pattern consisting of three fractures or fracture zones radiating from a point with an angular separation of 120 degrees. The point from which the three branches radiate is called a “triple junction” and is well illustrated in the Afar region of Ethiopia (Figure 4), where two branches are occupied by the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, and the third rift branch runs to the south through Ethiopia.
The stretching process associated with rift formation is often preceded by huge volcanic eruptions which flow over large areas and are usually preserved/exposed on the flanks of the rift.
These eruptions are considered by some geologists to be “flood basalts” – the lava is erupted along fractures (rather than at individual volcanoes) and runs over the land in sheets like water during a flood. Such eruptions can cover massive areas of land and develop enormous thicknesses (the Deccan Traps of India and the Siberian Traps are examples). If the stretching of the crust continues, it forms a “stretched zone” of thinned crust consisting of a mix of basaltic and continental rocks which eventually drops below sea level, as has happened in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Further stretching leads to the formation of oceanic crust and the birth of a new ocean basin.
The Great Split and Spread of the Mount of Olives
Zechariah 14:4 – And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half
of it toward the south.
For hundreds of years preachers have proclaimed from God’s word this event would occur during the tribulation period, and the proclamation, as is normally the case, has been met will rolls of laughter from most of the scientific world. Oddly enough, these scientists have, and still are, fulfilling a prophecy made by God through the prophet Daniel.
II Peter 3:3,4 – Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, [4] And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
Daniel 12:4 – But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Daniel’s prophecies concerning pre-tribulation events have, and are, being fulfilled, and indeed men and women have run “to and fro across”
the earth’s surface, “to and fro” into the universe, and “to and fro” in places beneath the earth’s land and water surface. This has produced a fantastic knowledge explosion in our understanding of the form and contents of God’s creation. The continuing fulfillment of Daniel 12:4 has convinced me that we are living in the days of “the time of the end.” And I am equally convinced these “to and fro” geological discoveries have so increased man’s knowledge that we now understand the basic form in which God designed the outer and enter crust of earth. These discoveries are in perfect agreement with what God revealed to the prophet Zechariah more than 2400 years ago.
Man has, in the end times, discovered a long, deep fault or “crack” in the earth’s crust that extends northward from the Red Sea through the Gulf of Eilat (Aqabah) into Israel and Lebanon. The Arabs identify it as the Gulf of Aqabah, and the Israelis call it the Gulf of Eilat. The fault itself is known to both as the “great rift valley fault”. It is a double fault in the sense that the two parts of it are separated by the valley floor between the two fault block mountains on it two sides. The vast majority of earthquakes occur along both sides of the valley from Eilat to the Lebanese border. (See Figures 24 and 25 found under our Birth Pangs Menu as Birth Pang Figures). It is the ripping open of this rift valley that will produce the earthquake responsible for the splitting of the Mount of Olives, which will itself be divided into a mini-rift valley as it spreads apart. (See Figures 30 to 33 in Birth Pangs).
The faults or “two cracks” in the earth’s surface are the northern part of a deep rift, or graben valley, which extends the length of the Red Sea, then southwestward through southeastern Africa. (See Figures 29 and 30 in Birth Pangs). The double cracks extend downward into molten magma beneath the earth’s surface. (See Birth Pang Figures 26 to 28). Widespread scientific exploration during the seventies fully exposed the spreading of the earth’s surface occurring in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and in southeastern Africa. Soon this splitting will extend northward unto the Jordan Valley, and, according to Zechariah 14:4, its effect will be sudden and dramatic. The fantastic earthquake produced in this Jordan Valley Rift, some 30 miles east of Jerusalem, will be sudden and abrupt, as will be its effect on the Mount of Olives, which will be torn into two parts during that terrible time in the tribulation period. This “suddenness” is certainly in accord with the geologic structure of today.
At the present the rift valley fault is spreading apart in the Red Sea at a rate of several centimeters each year, but the northern extension of the fault through Israel and Lebanon has been locked or “frozen” in place by tremendous tectonic forces.
When the spreading of the Red Sea fault reaches a certain critical (known only by God) both sides of the Jordan Valley will rip apart with a tremendous earthquake. This earthquake will cause the two faults, which now exist through the northern and southern flanks of the Mount of Olives, to move slightly, one north, and one south, and a new mini-graben valley will be formed between them as the middle of the mountain falls down between them. (See Birth Pang Figures 30 to 33).
When the northern and southern parts spread apart one part will be carried north with the Arabian tectonic plate, and the other will be carried south with the African tectonic plate. (See Birth Pang Figures 33 and 34).
Begin Excerpt from New York Times via World News
Ice Cap on West Ugandan Mountain Range Splits
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published May 4, 2010
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Ugandan wildlife authorities say the ice cap on the country’s western Rwenzori mountain range has split after extensive melting caused by global warming.
Nelson Guma says ice covering Mount Margherita, the second highest peak in Africa, has melted forming a large crevasse some 6 meters (nearly 20 feet) wide.
Guma said Tuesday the split occurred on the climbing route to Mount Margherita and that tourists can no longer climb that peak, but authorities are working to create another route to the peak. The East African peak has been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Environmental protection officer Henry Mujuzi says that because of global warming, the ice cap, which in the 1950s had covered four square miles, now covers less than a square mile.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more detailed information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
You may use material originated by this site.
However, if you wish to use any quoted copyrighted material from this site, which did not originate at this site, for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner from which we extracted it.