A New African Ocean Emerging with Spectacular Speed

In 2005 an Ethiopian volcano erupted, tearing a thirty-five mile rift in the country in a matter of days.  That might be slightly slower than the average Michael Bay event but it's still incredibly fast in geological terms - especially since this may well be the first sign of an incoming Ethiopian Ocean.  Nature seems to like keeping us on our toes.

It's known that new oceans form as magma forces its way into rifts between tectonic plates, but since every other such system worked - and is now under miles of ocean - we can't actually get down there for a detailed look.  Instead, an international collaboration of scientists both local and abroad studied the sudden "mega-dike intrusion" (a much less scary way of saying "holy hell our country just ripped open") and found that it matches all the signs for a prototype ocean bed.

The spectacular speed is what stunned scientists: it was assumed that such events occurred slowly in smaller steps, not sudden tectonic upheavals of the kind that cut the Earth itself open in less than a week.  We were wrong about that.  This raises important questions, both in terms of geophysical processes which shape the Earth we live on, and for anyone living within an earthquake of such a region.

Even with earthquake acceleration it'll be a long time before an Ethiopian port becomes an issue.  But this sudden starting point will be an international hub of oceanographic interest until then - and with oceanographers carefully studying the African desert, it's proof that Nature has a sense of irony.

Luke McKinney

An Incipient African Ocean 

Comments

[Sarah Jumel]

Oh man this is just screaming to be animated! just a few photos of it, from before and after, are needed to make a cool video.

[Jnem19]

A similar event occurred in 1978 (if I remember) shortly before the birth and eruption of "ardoukoba" (one of the youngest volcanoes on earth). Anything has been told but as nobody listened...

[claudio]

From Gondwana to Pangea to actual earth continents...God only knows how many changes and intermediate continents situations existed.

This small planet in the 4th arm of Milky way is a true wonder , BUT the continents and tectonic plates movements can also be deadly.

Human being could not survive a Pangea situation of a mega-continent and a mega-ocean.

Regards to Gea : our actual planet configuration....and cross the fingers for the next earthquake.

[Reason]

Wow who would have guessed crazy tectonic movements and upheavals of earth in a matter of days. Huge floods of water forming a new ocean. And people still think the Bible is crazy.