Mon Nov 2, 5:43 pm ET
A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.
The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial,
and the rift had not been well studied.
A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the
rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region's future
The same rift activity is slowly parting the Red Sea, too.
The Red Sea is parting again, but this time Moses doesn’t have a hand in it.
Satellite images show that the Arabian tectonic plate and the African plate are moving away from each other, stretching the Earth's crust and
widening the southern end of the Red Sea, scientists reported in this week's issue of journal Nature.
Aerial photo of the cracks and faults that formed in September, 2005. These cracks formed above the zone where molten rock rose into the plate,
reaching to within approximately 1.2 miles of the surface. Credit: Julie Rowland, University of Auckland
Either a huge earthquake or cataclysmic event would have to happen in these areas to split them, reminds me of the separation of the Continents.
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