The Park lies on the western arm of Africa's Great Rift Valley, a 5600-kilometer crack in the earth's crust that was caused by the East African tectonic plate slowly drifting eastward away from the rest of the continent. Here, the trough has been filled by water to create Lake Tanganyika, the world's second deepest lake, down to 1400 meters deep. Formed about 20 million years ago, it is the oldest of the Rift Valley lakes.

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Having such a large outlet, the lake's level is fairly stable and does not rise or fall more than about 1 meter. Wave action has carved out a beach ledge all along the shore of the park, the shore varying from sand to shingle to rock depending on the degree of exposure.

The underlying rocks of Gombe, as in most of Africa, are ancient gneisses, with overlying quartzites on the upper slopes. In some places, younger sandstones have been downfaulted to form red cliffs along the lake shore. Along the beach you can see examples of these rocks, particularly whitish quartzite and red sandstone.

All these rocks erode to form thin, stony, sandy soils, and only in the valley bottoms are there pockets of deeper, richer alluvial soils.

Special Thanks to Thomson Safaris and Tanzania National Parks for contributing Tanzanian information.

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