Sciency Thoughts: Lake Malawi

Showing posts with label Lake Malawi. Show all posts

Wednesday, 26 August 2020

Magnitude 5.0 Earthquke beneath Lake Malawi.

The United States Geological Survey Recorded a Magnitude 5.0 Earthquake at a depth of 6.4 km about 10 km beneath the Tanzanian portion of Lake Malawi, slightly after 10.00 am local time (slightly after 7.00 am GMT) on Monday 24 March 2018. There are no reports of any damage or casualties associated with this event, but people have reported feeling it locally.

The approximate location of the 24 August 2020 Lake Malawi Earthquake. USGS.

Lake Malawi lies within the the of the Great Rift Valley, which is slowly splitting the African Plate in two along a line from the Red Sea through Ethiopia, and which includes the great lakes and volcanoes of east-central Africa. This has the potential to open into a new ocean over the next few tens of millions of years, splitting Africa into two new, smaller, continents; Nubia to the west and Somalia to the east.

Movement on the African Rift Valley, with associated volcanoes. Rob Gamesby/Cool Geography.

Witness accounts of Earthquakes can help geologists to understand these events, and the structures that cause them. The international non-profit organisation Earthquake Report is interested in hearing from people who may have felt this event; if you felt this quake then you can report it to Earthquake Report here.

Wednesday, 6 December 2017

Crocodile kills man in Karonga Distriict, Malawi.

A 28-year-old man has been killed by a Crocodile in Karonga District in northern Malawi. Hussein Zibeli was apparently attempting to swim out to a boat where some friends were fishing, when he was seized by the animal and dragged under at about 8 pm local time on Thursday 30 November 2017. His body was later recovered, and an autopsy revealed he had died of a mixture of drowning and blood-loss. This is fairly typical of Crocodile attacks, with prey typically dragged under the water and drowned, but often not eaten immediately. This is at least the fifth Crocodile-related death in Malawi this year.

Wounds on the body of Hussein Zibeli, who was killed by a Crocodile on 30 November 2017. Nyasa Times.

Lake Malawi is home to a large population of Nile Crocodiles, Crocodylus niloticus. These are large animals, reaching about five meters in length, and are ambush predators capable of taking large prey, including, on occasion, Humans. The animals are thought to be at their most dangerous around in the dry season (December to March in Malawi), when the water is lowest, and females are guarding eggs buried in nests by the river.

A Nile Crocodile on Lake Malawi. Birding for Pleasure.

Nile Crocodiles are considered to be of Least Concern under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species, but are still protected in many countries, including Malawi, due to historic hunting which decimated populations in many areas. However, the rising number of attacks on Humans, which is thought to have been driven by rapidly rising populations of both Humans and Crocodiles, combined with a sharp decline in the numbers of many natural prey species, has led to calls for regulated hunting to be introduced to control the population.