Madagascar’s Tilted Past: How Two Ancient Rifts Sculpted a Living Island

Madagascar’s tilted past: How two ancient rifts sculpted a living island

Madagascar’s cliffs, rolling plateaus, and winding rivers weren’t shaped by a single violent event. Instead, the island’s breathtaking landscape took form through two massive tectonic rifts that happened tens of millions of years apart. These shifts tilted the land, redirected rivers, and sculpted the island’s dramatic shape — steep cliffs dropping into the Indian Ocean on the east and gentle plains stretching toward the Mozambique Channel on th…

The Ancient Tectonic Forces Which Reshaped Madagascar

Two great rifting events, separated by nearly 80 million year, first tore what was to become the island of Madagascar from Africa, then from India, tilting and reshaping its terrain and setting the stage for life to flourish in isolation. Madagascar first separated from Africa about 170 million years ago, forming a rugged western escarpment […]