The East African Institute for Fundamental Research (EAIFR) and the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) wish to inform those who may be interested of a GEO@EAIFR webinar. This seminar will take place on June 15, 2022 and will be broadcast live on ZOOM. It will also be recorded and later posted on the ICTP-EAIFR YouTube channel, where one can find the previous recorded GEO@EAIFR webinars. Below all the details:

Speaker: Dr Giacomo Corti, Director of Research at the National Research Council of Italy, Florence, Italy.

Title: Control of tectonic inheritance and plate kinematics on the architecture and evolution of the Main Ethiopian Rift, East Africa.

When: June 15, 2022 at 16:30 (Kigali time).

Register in advance for this meeting by clicking here.

All are very welcome.

Biography:

Dr. Corti received a Master Thesis at the University of Florence and a Ph.D. at the University of Pisa. I am currently a Director of Research at the National Research Council of Italy in Florence. My current research is aimed at understanding of the evolution, distribution and architecture of deformation during continental rifting, by adopting an integrated approach integrating remote (satellite imagery, digital elevation models) analysis, field studies, and numerical/analogue modelling. My research is mostly focused on the Ethiopian Rift Valley and its results were able to significantly improve the knowledge of rifting processes in the area, including aspects such as: the evolution, style and distribution of deformation; the plate kinematics setting of rifting; the relations between deformation and distribution and characteristics of volcanic activity; the relations between far-field and local stress fields; the timing of rift initiation and the propagation of deformation. On this research I cooperate with many colleagues in several national and foreign institutions.

Abstract:

The Main Ethiopian Rift (MER) in East Africa offers a unique opportunity to analyse the different parameters that control the architecture and evolution of continental rifting. Along its axis its record all the different stages of rift evolution, from incipient rifting characterised by marginal tectonic deformation in the south to final rifting and incipient break-up indicated by axial magmatic deformation in the north. In this talk I will summarize existing data on rift evolution and architecture in the MER. These data indicate that the plan-view geometry and the initial segmentation of the rift (with alternating symmetric and asymmetric basins) have been controlled by tectonic inheritance and the presence of large-scale inherited structures. Later segmentation and the along-axis variation in rift evolution (from incipient in the south to advanced rifting in the north) have been likely controlled by an along-variations in rift kinematics (from orthogonal in the south to oblique in the north), in turn controlled by plate motion and plan-view rift geometry. Rift obliquity may have favoured a faster rift evolution indicating that this kinematics may favour rapid continental break-up.