The Urema Valley, also known as the Urema Graben, is a lowland valley in Sofala Province of central Mozambique. The Urema Valley extends from the Zambezi River south to Sofala Bay. It is a typical

graben In geology, a graben () is a depressed block of the crust of a planet or moon, bordered by parallel normal faults. Etymology ''Graben'' is a loan word from German, meaning 'ditch' or 'trench'. The word was first used in the geologic contex ...

valley, with a flat bottom and escarpments on either side. It forms a broad crescent which bends towards the west as it extends from north to south. The valley floor is 12-80 meters above sea level, and averages about 40 km wide. Escarpments 300 to 400 meters high lead to plateaus. The

Cheringoma Plateau The Cheringoma Plateau is a low plateau in Sofala Province of Mozambique. It lies mostly within Cheringoma, Muanza, and Marromeu districts. Geography The Cheringoma Plateau lies near the coast, between the lower Zambezi and Pungwe rivers. The ...

lies to the east, and the Barue Plateau to the west.

Mount Gorongosa Mount Gorongosa is an inselberg in Sofala Province of central Mozambique. Its highest peak, Gogogo, reaches an elevation of 1,863 meters (6,112 feet). It was created by Karoo Volcanism. The upper zone of the mountain (above 700 meters) was mad ...

lies on the Barue Plateau near the western escarpment. The Urema Valley is the southernmost portion of the

East African Rift The East African Rift (EAR) or East African Rift System (EARS) is an active continental rift zone in East Africa. The EAR began developing around the onset of the Miocene, 22–25 million years ago. In the past it was considered to be part of a ...

, a continuation of the southern rift segment contains the Shire River valley and Lake Malawi. Much of the valley floor is covered with seasonal wetlands, which are filled during the rainy season by rivers flowing off the Barue Plateau. The northern end of the graben is drained by the Zangue River, which flows north to join the Zambezi. The Urema River flows south into the lower Pungwe, and forms a large but shallow seasonal lake called Lake Urema. Gorongosa National Park occupies the central portion of the Graben, including Lake Urema. The southernmost portion of the valley is occupied by the large estuary of the Pungwe and

Buzi Buzi (Hebrew: בּוּזִי, ''Būzī'') was the father of Ezekiel and priest of Jerusalem ( Ezekiel 1:3). Ezekiel, like Jeremiah, is said to have been a descendant of Joshua by his marriage with the proselyte Rahab (Talmud Meg. 14b; Midrash Sifr ...

rivers, with extensive

mangrove swamps A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in severa ...

. The port of Beira lies on the eastern shore of the estuary where it meets Sofala Bay. In addition to the seasonally-flooded grasslands, the valley floor is occupied by warm and dry

mopane woodland ''Colophospermum mopane'', commonly called mopane, mopani, balsam tree, butterfly tree, or turpentine tree, is a tree in the legume family (Fabaceae), that grows in hot, dry, low-lying areas, in elevation, in the far northern parts of southern A ...

Miombo woodlands The Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located primarily in Central Africa. It includes four woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) characterized b ...

occupy the more humid Barue Plateau. The climate of the Cheringoma Plateau is influenced by the Indian Ocean, and is home to coastal forest mosaic.Burgess, Neil, Jennifer D’Amico Hales, Emma Underwood (2004). ''Terrestrial Ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar: A Conservation Assessment''. Island Press, Washington DC.

References

{{coord missing, Mozambique Cenozoic rifts and grabens Geography of Sofala Province Great Rift Valley Landforms of Mozambique Zambezian and mopane woodlands