Many of the national parks in East Africa are equally as famous for their iconic landforms as they are for their diversity and concentrations of fauna and flora. The newly formed Ngorongoro-Lengai Geopark in northern Tanzania is the first geopark to be established in the region, but there is remarkable potential for geotourism in the majority of the national parks. The most spectacular landforms have been shaped by the East African Rift System. Formation of the two major rifts in the region, the Albertine Rift (or western branch) and the Gregory Rift (or eastern branch), was accompanied, or in some cases preceded, by extensive alkaline volcanism. The rifting and volcanism are primarily Late Cenozoic phenomenon that dissected and overprinted the older regional plateaus. Rifting impacted the regional drainage and captured major rivers, including the Victoria Nile. Chains of ribbon lakes formed in the rift valleys. The Albertine Rift consists of a sequence of sedimentary basins with deep freshwater lakes, but the shallow soda lakes of the Gregory Rift are associated with mostly volcanic terrains. Plateau-style volcanic outpourings smoothed out the older land surfaces, created near-lunar landscapes in parts of the rift valley, and built up rift shoulders to tremendous elevations. Magma erupted from central conduits formed giant stratovolcanoes which reveal evidence of explosive, Plinian-style volcanic activity. East Africa includes some of the largest and best preserved calderas on Earth. The Ngorongoro Caldera is a world heritage site. The ice-capped peaks of the two largest volcanoes in the region, Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, are among the highest free-standing mountains on Earth. The region includes active volcanoes, several of which are potentially hazardous as they are located near urban centres. Examples include Longonot-Hells Gate (Kenya), Mount Meru (Tanzania) and Nyiragongo (Democratic Republic of Congo). East Africa is renowned for the unusual rapidity of Darwinian evolution during the past thirty million years, including evolution of primates and hominins, and it is not a coincidence that significant palaeoanthropological discoveries have been unearthed from the Oldupai Gorge and Laetoli sites in northern Tanzania. The evolutionary period coincides with the onset and persistence of rifting and volcanism. Speciation is following an island-style pattern in East Africa, despite the continental setting, as regional plateaus are being dissected by the ongoing rifting and volcanism into smaller and smaller geological terrains. This is illustrated by restriction of the endangered Mountain gorilla to regions where afromontane forests developed in rift-related uplands isolated by extensive savannah grasslands.

中文翻译：

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东非国家公园的地质旅游，标志性地貌和岛屿式物种格局

东非的许多国家公园以其标志性地貌而闻名，也以其动植物的多样性和集中度而闻名。坦桑尼亚北部新组建的恩戈罗恩戈罗-伦加地质公园是该地区第一个建立的地质公园，但是大多数国家公园都具有进行地质旅游的巨大潜力。东非大裂谷系统塑造了最壮观的地貌。该地区两大裂谷的形成是阿尔伯丁大裂谷（或西部分支）和格雷戈里大裂谷（或东部分支），伴随着，或者在某些情况下，还伴随着广泛的碱性火山作用。裂谷和火山作用主要是晚期新生代现象，该现象解剖并覆盖了较旧的区域高原。裂谷影响了该地区的排水并占领了主要河流，包括维多利亚尼罗河。裂谷形成了带状湖泊链。阿尔伯汀大裂谷由一系列沉积盆地组成，其中有深层的淡水湖泊，但格雷戈里大裂谷的浅苏打湖大多与火山地形有关。高原式的火山喷发使较旧的陆地表面变得平整，在裂谷的部分地区形成了近月形景观，并在巨大的海拔上建立了裂谷。中央管道喷出的岩浆形成了巨大的平流火山，揭示了爆炸性的普林尼式火山活动的迹象。东非包括地球上一些最大，保存最完好的破火山口。恩戈罗恩戈罗火山口是世界遗产。该地区两个最大的火山乞力马扎罗山和肯尼亚山的冰封山峰，是地球上最高的独立山之一。该地区有活火山，由于它们位于城市中心附近，其中一些具有潜在危险。例子包括Longonot-Hells Gate（肯尼亚），Meru山（坦桑尼亚）和Nyiragongo（刚果民主共和国）。东非以过去三千万年来达尔文进化异常迅速而闻名，包括灵长类动物和人类的进化，而且坦桑尼亚北部的Oldupai峡谷和Laetoli遗址出土了重要的古人类学发现也不是巧合。演化时期与裂谷和火山爆发的发生和持续时间相吻合。尽管有大陆环境，但物种仍沿用东非的岛屿风格，随着不断的裂谷和火山作用将区域高原分解为越来越小的地质地形。通过将濒临灭绝的山地大猩猩限制在由大草原草原隔离的与裂谷有关的高地上生长紫檀林的地区，可以说明这一点。