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Tanzania comprises many lakes, national parks, and Africa's highest point, Mount Kilimanjaro. Northeast Tanzania is mountainous, while the central area is part of a large plateau covered in grasslands. The country also contains the southern portion of Lake Victoria on its northern border with Uganda and Kenya.
Lake Rukwa is an endorheic lake in the Rukwa Valley of southwestern Tanzania.
The Afar Triple Junction is located along a divergent plate boundary dividing the Nubian, Somali, and Arabian plates. This area is considered a present-day example of continental rifting leading to seafloor spreading and producing an oceanic basin. Here, the Red Sea Rift meets the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift. It extends a total of 6,500 kilometers (4,000 mi) in three arms from the Afar Triangle to Mozambique.
Galulatherium is a genus of probably gondwanathere from the Late Cretaceous (Turonian-Campanian) Galula Formation of Tanzania.
Pakasuchus is a genus of notosuchian crocodyliform distinguished by its unusual mammal-like appearance, including mammal-like teeth that would have given the animal the ability to chew. It also had long, slender legs and a doglike nose. Pakasuchus lived approximately 105 million years ago, in the mid-Cretaceous. Fossils have been found in the Galula Formation of Rukwa Rift Basin of southwestern Tanzania, and were described in 2010 in the journal Nature. The type species is P. kapilimai. Pakasuchus means "cat crocodile" in reference to its cat-like appearance and probable behavior.
Kahawamys is an extinct genus of thryonomyoid rodent which existed in Nsungwe Formation, Tanzania during the late Oligocene. It was first named by Nancy J. Stevens, Patricia A. Holroyd, Eric M. Roberts, Patrick M. O'connor and Michael D. Gottfried in 2009 and the type species is Kahawamys mbeyaensis.
The Southern Highlands is a highland region in southwestern Tanzania, at the northern end of Lake Malawi. The highlands include portions of Mbeya, Njombe, Rukwa, Ruvuma, and Songwe regions, bordering Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia. Mbeya is the largest city in the highlands.
The Rukwa Valley is a valley of southwestern Tanzania, and is a part of the Great Rift Valley. Sparsely populated because of its harsh environment, its grassland biodiversity includes thousands of species.
Mbeya Range is a volcanic mountain range in Mbeya Region, in southwestern Tanzania, East Africa. It forms an arc just north of the town of Mbeya and includes Loleza Peak, Mbeya Peak, Nyanuwa Peak, and Pungulumo. The range is at the junction of the eastern Gregory Rift and western Albertine Rift valleys. and is in Rungwe volcanic province. The Songwe Scarp terminates the Rukwa Trough at its southeast end and forms the northwestern side of the Mbeya Range.
Rukwasuchus is an extinct genus of peirosaurid mesoeucrocodylian known from the middle Cretaceous Galula Formation of southwestern Tanzania. It contains a single species, Rukwasuchus yajabalijekundu.
Rukwatitan bisepultus is a genus of titanosaur sauropod dinosaur from the Galula Formation in Tanzania. It lived around 100 million years ago, during the middle Cretaceous. The species, which shared features with another southern African species, Malawisaurus dixeyi, measured 30 feet (9.1 m) from the head to the tip of the tail, and had forelimbs that were estimated around 6.5 feet (2.0 m) long. Fossils were found embedded in a cliff face near Lake Rukwa in the Rukwa Valley.
Shingopana is a genus of titanosaurian sauropod from the Middle Cretaceous Galula Formation of Tanzania. It is known from only the type species, S. songwensis. Gorsak & O'Connor's phylogenetic testing suggest Shingopana is more closely related to the South American titanosaur family of Aeolosaurini than any of the titanosaurs found so far in North & South Africa.
The geology of Tanzania began to form in the Precambrian, in the Archean and Proterozoic eons, in some cases more than 2.5 billion years ago. Igneous and metamorphic crystalline basement rock forms the Archean Tanzania Craton, which is surrounded by the Proterozoic Ubendian belt, Mozambique Belt and Karagwe-Ankole Belt. The region experienced downwarping of the crust during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, as the massive Karoo Supergroup deposited. Within the past 100 million years, Tanzania has experienced marine sedimentary rock deposition along the coast and rift formation inland, which has produced large rift lakes. Tanzania has extensive, but poorly explored and exploited natural resources, including coal, gold, diamonds, graphite and clays.
The Galula Formation is a geological formation located south of Lake Rukwa in Tanzania, part of the Red Sandstone Group of the Rukwa Rift Basin. Along with the unconformably overlying Oligocene Nsungwe Formation. It is divided into two members, the lower Mtuka Member and the upper Namba Member.
Mnyamawamtuka is a genus of lithostrotian titanosaur sauropod dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous Galula Formation in Tanzania. The type and only species is M. moyowamkia.
The Ufipa Plateau is a highland in southwestern Tanzania. It lies mostly in Rukwa Region, near the border with Zambia. The plateau is named for the Fipa people who inhabit it.
The Nsungwe Formation is a formation in the Rukwa Rift Basin of the East African Rift System, it is Oligocene in age based on U-Pb dating of a tuff horizon within the formation. It is part of the Red Sandstone Group along with the uncomfortably underlying Mid-Cretaceous Galula Formation It is divided into two members, the lower Utengule Member, and the upper Songwe member. It is notable for being one of the most important Paleogene fossil deposits in Sub-Saharan Africa.
References
- ↑ Roberts, Eric M.; O’Connor, Patrick M.; Stevens, Nancy J.; Gottfried, Michael D.; Jinnah, Zubair A.; Ngasala, Sifael; Choh, Adeline M.; Armstrong, Richard A. (May 2010). "Sedimentology and depositional environments of the Red Sandstone Group, Rukwa Rift Basin, southwestern Tanzania: New insight into Cretaceous and Paleogene terrestrial ecosystems and tectonics in sub-equatorial Africa". Journal of African Earth Sciences. 57 (3): 179–212. doi:10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2009.09.002. ISSN 1464-343X.
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