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50 free Great Rift Valley trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Great Rift Valley trivia quiz covers the 6,500-kilometre chain of depressions that runs from Syria through the Red Sea to Mozambique. The easy questions are the ones any geography student knows: what a rift valley is, which continent is slowly splitting, the lowest point on Earth's land surface, the highest mountain in Africa, and where Lucy and the Leakeys' fossils were found. From there it moves into the geology: the African, Somali and Nubian plates, the Afar triple junction, the eastern Gregory and western Albertine branches, and the mantle plumes underneath. The hard end covers the record-holders and the odd corners: the second-deepest lake on Earth, the lake with more fish species than any other, the world's largest desert lake, the only active carbonatite volcano, the lava lake that has burned since 1906, the lake that could erupt with dissolved gas, the calcifying waters of Natron and the flamingos that breed there, plus the explorers Thomson, Gregory, Burton, Speke and Teleki who mapped and named it all. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the rift system, its lakes, volcanoes and fossil sites, and each question links to the page that establishes it. Fifty questions, free, with an explanation after every answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Roughly how long is the Great Rift Valley, from northern Syria to Mozambique?
6,500 km
Geologists now prefer the term Afro-Arabian Rift System for the structures beneath it.
Q 02Which British geologist introduced the term Great Rift Valley in 1896?
John Walter Gregory
He built on Austrian geologist Eduard Suess's idea of a linked set of features from Syria to Mozambique; the eastern branch is named after him.
Q 03Gregory defined a rift valley as a linear valley with steep, almost vertical sides that has done what?
Dropped between a series of faults
He visited central Kenya in 1893 and 1919; his 1896 book The Great Rift Valley is a classic.
Q 04The East African Rift is a boundary where the African plate is splitting in two. What are the two halves called?
Somali and Nubian
Three microplates, Victoria, Rovuma and Lwandle, sit within the system.
Q 05At what rate are the two sides of the East African Rift pulling apart?
8-9 mm per year
Marine geologist Kathleen Crane suggests eastern Africa could eventually separate from the mainland, but over tens of millions of years.
Q 06The East African Rift began developing at the onset of which geological epoch, 22-25 million years ago?
Miocene
Enormous continental flood basalts had erupted first, lifting the Ethiopian, Somali and East African plateaus.
Q 07Where do the Red Sea Rift, the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift meet?
The Afar triple junction
The depression beside it is a zone of thinned, heavily intruded crust and the hottest year-round place on Earth.
Q 08South of Ethiopia the system splits into an eastern branch and a western branch. What are they called?
The Gregory and the Albertine
They pass either side of the Victoria microplate and rejoin north of Lake Malawi.
Q 09The northern, Asian section of the Great Rift Valley is formed by which plate boundary?
The Dead Sea Transform
It runs from southeastern Turkey to the Gulf of Aqaba, with pull-apart basins that hold the Dead Sea and Sea of Galilee.
Q 10The most northerly part of the Great Rift Valley is a plain along which river in Syria?
The Orontes
The Ghab Plain lies above the Ghab basin; the Beqaa valley comes next to the south.
Q 11The Dead Sea's shores are the lowest land on Earth, roughly how far below sea level as of 2025?
440 metres
Its water is about 34% salt.
Q 12The Dead Sea is roughly how many times saltier than the ocean?
9.6
The salinity was measured at 342 grams per kilogram in 2011; nothing much can live in it, hence the name.
Q 13During the Pleistocene the whole Dead Sea depression was filled by which vanished body of water?
Lake Lisan
Even at its highest, its surface was still about 200 metres below sea level.
Q 14The section of the rift between the Dead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba is known as what?
Q 21Kilimanjaro's two named peaks, Kibo and Mawenzi, have names meaning what?
"Spotted" and "broken top"
Kibo is spotted with snow; Mawenzi has a jagged summit.
Q 22Which lake in the western branch is the world's longest freshwater lake and second deepest after Baikal?
Tanganyika
Burton and Speke were the first Westerners to reach it, in 1858.
Q 23Lake Malawi is home to more species of fish than any other lake, including at least how many cichlid species?
700
David Livingstone reached it in 1859 and named it Lake Nyasa; it is 706 metres deep at its deepest point.
The Arabah
Its northern part is also called the Arava valley; the watershed sits at about 200 metres.
Q 15The Danakil Depression, first African section of the rift south of the Red Sea, lies roughly how far below sea level?
125 metres
It sits between the Ethiopian Plateau and the Danakil Alps and forms the northern tip of the Afar rift.
Q 16Dallol in the Danakil Depression holds what climatic record?
Hottest year-round average temperature
Daily means there ranged from 30 °C in January to 39 °C in July in the 1960s.
Q 17Erta Ale in Ethiopia's Afar region is famous for what?
The longest-existing lava lake, since at least 1906
Only about eight volcanoes worldwide had lava lakes in 2019.
Q 18Ol Doinyo Lengai in Tanzania is the world's only active volcano erupting which unusual lava?
Natrocarbonatite
The magma is almost silica-free and flows like olive oil; it erupts dark and turns white like snow within days.
Q 19What do the Maasai call Ol Doinyo Lengai?
The Mountain of God
Legend says the god Engai withdrew there after being hit by a hunter's arrow.
Q 20Mount Kilimanjaro, on the rift shoulder in Tanzania, is how tall?
5,895 m
It is Africa's highest mountain and the world's highest free-standing mountain; Hans Meyer first reached the top in 1889.
Q 24Lake Victoria, though not itself in a rift trough, is Africa's largest by area and the world's largest of what kind?
Tropical
John Hanning Speke named it after Queen Victoria in 1858; it is second only to Lake Superior among freshwater lakes by area.
Q 25Which invasive fish has driven many of Lake Victoria's endemic species to extinction?
Nile perch
The lake occupies a shallow depression and has dried to smaller lakes at times in its history.
Q 26The Jade Sea in northern Kenya holds which two world records?
Largest permanent desert lake and largest alkaline lake
Its turquoise colour earned it the nickname the Jade Sea.
Q 27The Jade Sea was named Lake Rudolf in 1888 by which Hungarian explorer, in honour of Austria's crown prince?
Count Sámuel Teleki
His second-in-command, the Austrian Ludwig Ritter von Höhnel, accompanied him.
Q 28Lake Natron's water can reach a pH above 12 and does what to the bodies of animals that die in it?
Calcifies them
Halophilic microbes turn its salt crust red and pink.
Q 29Lake Natron is the only regular East African breeding site for how many lesser flamingos?
2.5m
Their "near threatened" status stems from dependence on this single site; they feed on red-pigmented Spirulina.
Q 30Lake Kivu is one of only three lakes in the world known to undergo what kind of catastrophic event?
Limnic eruptions
Dissolved carbon dioxide and methane in its depths could threaten two million people if the lake overturns.