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In one of the hottest places on Earth, along an arid stretch of
East Africa’s Afar region, it’s possible to stand on the exact
spot where, deep underground, the continent is splitting apart.

This desolate expanse sits atop the juncture of three tectonic
plates that are very slowly peeling away from each other, a
complex geological process that scientists say will eventually
cleave Africa in two and create a new ocean basin millions of
years from now. For now, the most obvious evidence is a 35-mile-
long crack in the Ethiopian desert.

The African continent’s tectonic fate has been studied for
several decades, but new satellite measurements are helping
scientists better understand the transition and are offering
valuable tools to study the gradual birth of a new ocean in one
of the most geologically unique spots on the planet.

“This is the only place on Earth where you can study how
continental rift becomes an oceanic rift,” said Christopher
Moore, a Ph.D. doctoral student at the University of Leeds in
the United Kingdom, who has been using satellite radar to
monitor volcanic activity in East Africa that is associated with
the continent’s breakup.

It’s thought that Africa’s new ocean will take at least 5
million to 10 million years to form, but the Afar region’s
fortuitous location at the boundaries of the Nubian, Somali and
Arabian plates makes it a unique laboratory to study elaborate
tectonic processes.

Earth’s crust is made up of a dozen large tectonic plates, which
are irregularly shaped, rocky slabs that constantly mash
against, climb over, slide under or stretch apart from one
another.

For the past 30 million years, the Arabian plate has been moving
away from Africa, a process that created the Red Sea and the
Gulf of Aden between the two connected landmasses. But the
Somali plate in eastern Africa is also stretching away from the
Nubian plate, peeling apart along the East African Rift Valley,
which extends through Ethiopia and Kenya.

But there are still some big unknowns, including what is causing
the continent to rift apart. Some think that a massive plume of
superheated rocks rising from the mantle beneath East Africa
could be driving the region’s continental rift.

In recent years, GPS instruments have revolutionized this field
of research, allowing scientists to make precise measurements of
how the ground moves over time, said Ken Macdonald, a marine
geophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of
California, Santa Barbara.

“With GPS measurements, you can measure rates of movement down
to a few millimeters per year,” Macdonald said. “As we get more
and more measurements from GPS, we can get a much greater sense
of what’s going on.”

Detailed satellite observations combined with additional field
research could also help scientists piece together what is
happening underground in the Afar region. But if the area is a
living laboratory to study continental rift, the environment
doesn’t make it easy.

“It has been called Dante’s inferno,” said Cynthia Ebinger, a
geophysicist at Tulane University in New Orleans, who has
conducted numerous field research campaigns in the Afar region.
“The hottest inhabited town on the Earth’s surface is in the
Afar. Daytime temperatures often go to 130 degrees Fahrenheit
and they cool off to a balmy 95 degrees at night.”

Some of Ebinger’s research in the field focused on a giant, 35-
mile crack that opened up in the Ethiopian desert in 2005. The
violent split was equivalent to several hundred years of
tectonic plate movement in just a few days, she said.

Since then, Ebinger’s work has zeroed in on what triggers these
extreme events. Her research suggests that the rifting process
isn’t always smooth and steady but can sometimes be defined by
intense jerks along the way.

“We’re trying to understand the straw that breaks the camel’s
back,” she said.

Ebinger thinks built-up pressure from rising magma could be
triggering the explosive events seen in the Afar region. She
likened the scenario to overfilling a balloon and creating so
much tension on the outer surface that it doesn’t take much to
relieve the pressure and cause the balloon to pop.

Over time, these rifting events will reshape the African
continent.

Each plate boundary in the Afar region is spreading at different
speeds, but the combined forces of these separating plates is
creating what’s known as a mid-ocean ridge system, where
eventually a new ocean will form.

“The Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will flood in over the Afar
region and into the East African Rift Valley and become a new
ocean, and that part of East Africa will become its own separate
small continent,” Macdonald said.

The three plates are separating at different speeds. The Arabian
plate is moving away from Africa at a rate of about 1 inch per
year, while the two African plates are separating even slower,
between half an inch to 0.2 inches per year, according to
Macdonald.

The rifting process may be happening at a glacial pace, but
researchers say there are clear signs that this transition is
taking place. As the plates peel apart, material from deep
inside Earth moves to the surface and forms oceanic crust at the
ridges.

“We can see that oceanic crust is starting to form, because it’s
distinctly different from continental crust in its composition
and density,” Moore said.

Mother Earth is tired of niggers. She is going to drown their
asses.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/african-continent- very-slowly-peeling-apart-scientists-say-new-ocean-n1234128

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