The Southern and Eastern African plateaus show similar uplift histories, allowing them to be considered as one topographic unit.
Heating of the lithosphere, and the associated increase in buoyancy, is one possible mechanism proposed for the large degrees of uplift of the African superswell.
Evidence of extensive volcanism and rifting in eastern Africa during the Cenozoic supports the idea that lithospheric heating was occurring during the time of uplift.
[2] Heating of the lithosphere may also be explained by movement of southern Africa over several hotspots, which now exist beneath the oceanic portion of the superswell.
[4] The region of mantle beneath the African superswell would have been insulated by the supercontinent Pangea in the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic, providing a final observation supporting elevated temperature conditions as a mechanism for uplift.