Description
We all belong to Africa. It is the birthplace of humanity, the nursery where we learned to walk, to talk, to play, to love. Our everyday life is founded upon a talent for innovation that was first used to make stone tools in East Africa nearly three million years ago. From those beginnings we have colonized the globe, built modern civilizations, and traveled to the moon. The thread that joins us to our African ancestors stretches across thousands of generations, but still tugs at the heartstrings as we marvel at Africa's landscapes, wildlife, and people.
Africa is huge-much larger than most people think. All of the continental United States would fit comfortably within the Sahara alone, leaving room in the rest of the continent for China, India, New Zealand, Argentina, and half of Europe. But size is not everything. Africa is also the oldest and most stable of the continents. Its basic form is nearly as old as Earth itself. Its ancient rocks have been less disturbed by volcanoes or earthquakes than any other large landmass. It holds a treasure house of gold, diamonds, and other jewels, as well as vast quantities of minerals such as iron, copper, chromium, and coal.
Once the center of the mighty supercontinent, Pangaea, Africa remained almost station- ary as the other continents drifted to their present positions. The Equator has always spanned some part of the continent during the past several hundred million years, bestow- ing a belt of tropical warmth that helped to make Africa a hothouse of evolution. Fossil algae in the 3-5-billion-year-old rocks of the Barberton Mountain Land are among the earliest known examples of life on Earth, while the same living algae today feed millions of flamin- gos on the Rift Valley lakes, African crocodiles are the living relatives of the extinct reptilian dinosaurs whose fossil bones have been found in Niger, Tanzania, Zambia, and Lesotho.
The variety of landscapes in Africa is breathtaking. Lofty mountains rise from sun- bleached savannas. The waters of the Nile and the Niger Rivers lay green braids of vegetation through barren desert. The Great Rift Valley stands alone as a unique geological phenomenon. The Great Lakes of central Africa are some of the largest and deepest in the world. The majes tic forests of the Congo Basin are the last refuge of gorillas and chimpanzees. The grasslands of the Sahel are unequaled in their expanse. The isolation of Ethiopia's spectacular mountains has fostered the evolution of unique plants and animals. Coral reefs fringe the tropical coasts.
