African plate

The cratons are connected by orogenic belts, regions of highly deformed rock where the tectonic plates have engaged.

The Saharan Metacraton has been tentatively identified as the remains of a craton that has become detached from the subcontinental lithospheric mantle, but alternatively may consist of a collection of unrelated crustal fragments swept together during the Pan-African orogeny.

The plate includes shear zones such as the Central African Shear Zone (CASZ) where, in the past, two sections of the crust were moving in opposite directions, and rifts such as the Anza Trough where the crust was pulled apart, and the resulting depression filled with more modern sediment.

One hypothesis proposes a mantle plume rising beneath the Afar region pushing the crust outward, whereas an opposing hypothesis explains the rifting by dynamics in the crust, as a break in the African plate along a line of maximum weakness as plates to its east move rapidly northward.

The New England hotspot in the Atlantic Ocean has probably created a short line of mid- to late-Tertiary age seamounts on the African plate but appears to be currently inactive.

Tectonic dynamics in the Adriatic basin - The western limit of the Adriatic basin currently shifts by about 40 mm per year towards the east, under the thrust of the Eurasian plate, resulting in a gradual narrowing of the Adriatic Sea. The Po Valley is part of the African plate. (Text in Italian)
Today, the African plate is moving over Earth's surface at a speed of 32.51 km per million years relative to the Earth's "average" crust velocities (see NNR-MORVEL56 )
Map of East Africa showing some of the historically active volcanoes (red triangles) and the Afar Triangle (shaded, center) – a triple junction where three plates are pulling away from one another: the Arabian plate, the African plate, and the Somali plate (USGS)