The Great Rift: Africa's Greatest Story

Season

2010

8

The Great Rift Valley in Africa was created when the African and Arabian tectonic plates separated about 35 million years ago. This series investigates the forces that created the rift and focuses on the landscape and wildlife.

Episode List

S1 • E1

Fire

Ethiopia's Afar low plain is a lunar landscape of craters and saline lakes in hellish heat. By extreme contrast, over thirty million years, half a million cubic kilometer lava created an equally bizarre mountain range nearby.

S1 • E2

Water

The giant East African Great Rift, a vast plane, includes several lakes. Those are surprisingly diverse biotopes, some with extraordinarily unique food chains. One is even filled with poisonous volcanic minerals, which only the pink flamingo (colored by it) thrives in as predator.

S1 • E3

Grass

The final program is about the savannah ecosystem and the animals that live on it. The final scenes of the program suggest that the Rift Valley is the cradle of humanity.