Albertine Rift

The Albertine Rift is the western branch of the East African Rift, running roughly 1,000 kilometers from the northern end of Lake Albert to the southern end of Lake Tanganyika and covering parts of Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania. It formed as tectonic forces gradually pulled the Somali Plate away from the rest of the African continent, uplifting a chain of mountains built from ancient Precambrian basement rock, in places overlaid with more recent volcanic rock, including the Rwenzori and Virunga ranges. The rift valley and its surrounding mountains enclose a chain of major lakes, among them Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Kivu and Lake Tanganyika.