Why Tanzania Is Sitting On The Most Valuable Land In Human History

Tanzania is not a country that got lucky. It is a continent tearing itself in half, and every valuable thing on top of it — the gold, the tanzanite, the helium, the Serengeti, the oldest footprints on Earth — is a by-product of that same crack. The East African Rift has been widening for around 25 million years. Thinning crust released magma, which built Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro. Those volcanoes blew ash southwest, which built the short-grass plains, which feed a migration of a million and a half animals. The same splitting dropped a trough deep enough to hold the second deepest lake on the planet, and cut a gorge through two million years of layered sediment that rewrote human origins. 25 facts, counted down, from the plate boundary to a set of footprints pressed into wet volcanic ash 3.66 million years ago and sealed by a second eruption days later. CHAPTERS 0:00 A continent tearing itself in half 1:00 #25-24 The East African Rift and the magma beneath it 2:15 #23 Kilimanjaro - the highest free-standing mountain on Earth 3:00 #22 Ngorongoro - the largest intact caldera on Earth 3:52 #21 Ol Doinyo Lengai - the volcano that erupts black lava 4:32 #20-19 Volcanic ash, the Serengeti and the Great Migration 5:57 #18-17 Lake Tanganyika - a mile deep and mostly dead 7:12 #16 Lake Natron - the lake that protects the flamingos 7:52 #15-14 Olduvai Gorge and the Leakeys 9:06 #13-12 The Laetoli footprints - 3.66 million years old 10:11 #11 The Tanzania Craton and the Lake Victoria goldfields 11:41 #10-9 Tanzanite - one deposit on the entire planet 13:03 #8 Helium in the Rukwa Basin 13:44 #7-6 Offshore gas and the Kabanga nickel deposit 14:55 #5 The coastline six landlocked countries depend on 15:30 #4-3 The Swahili coast, Kilwa and Zanzibar 16:42 #2 The rift is still moving 17:22 #1 One accident, and everything else is a consequence WHAT'S COVERED The East African Rift — a divergent plate boundary splitting into two arms around Tanzania Kilimanjaro — 5,895m, three cones, five ecological zones, and glaciers that have been retreating for over a century Ngorongoro — a volcano that collapsed around 2.5 million years ago and left an enclosure nobody built Ol Doinyo Lengai — the only volcano on Earth erupting natrocarbonatite, at roughly half the temperature of normal lava Why the Serengeti is grassland: volcanic ash, calcium, phosphorus, and a hardpan trees cannot root through The Great Migration — 1.5 million wildebeest, and why half a million calves are born in a two-week window Lake Tanganyika — around 1,470m deep, second only to Baikal, and anoxic below 200m Lake Natron — caustic enough to be the safest breeding site on Earth for the lesser flamingo Olduvai Gorge — layered ash, radiometric dating, Homo habilis, and the Oldowan toolkit Laetoli — three individuals walking upright 3.66 million years ago, and the absurd sequence of events that preserved them Tanzanite — one deposit near Mererani, formed 585 million years ago, identified only in 1967, with an estimable end date Helium in the Rukwa Basin, offshore gas in the Rovuma and Mafia basins, and the Kabanga nickel sulphide deposit TAZARA and why being the doorway for six landlocked countries cannot be mined out Kilwa Kisiwani, the monsoon trade system, and the clove economy of Zanzibar Corrections welcome, especially on place names and pronunciation. If you're watching from Arusha, Mererani, the Lake Zone or the coast, the comments are where the next video's research comes from. #Tanzania #Geology #Geography