Geologists have ringside seats for an ocean's birth ~~ A new sea forming in Africa

The Register ^ | Thursday 20th July 2006 08:36 GMT | Lucy Sherriff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

A rift that opened in Africa after a massive earthquake last September could be the beginning of a new Ocean, scientists say. The crack in the ground appeared along a fault line in the Afar desert in Ethiopia.

The crack is heading for the Red Sea. If it makes it that far, it would carve a new ocean that would separate Eritrea and part of Ethiopia (both of which lie on the Arabian plate) from the rest of the continent, creating a new island.

Satellite data collected since the quake shows that the rift is widening at an unprecedented rate, according to reports. It is sixty kilometres long and by October it was already eight metres wide in some places. These observations are reported in Nature.

The Rift Valley is a very geologically active region, thanks to the separation of the Arabian and Nubian tectonic plates. As the plates slide away from each other, the crust of the Earth is stretched and thinned to the point where cracks appear.

In this case, as the crust fractured, approximately 2.5 cubic kilometres of magma from nearby volcanoes flooded into the rift, forming fresh continental crust. That is enough to cover the area inside the M25 to a depth of about a yard, the BBC reports.

The research team, a collaboration between scientists in the UK and in Ethiopia, used both field measurements and satellite images from the European Space Agency's Envisat spacecraft to build a precise map of the changes. It is the first event of this kind to have occurred since the satellite technology became available.

If the crack does represent the birth of a new ocean (and it may not - it could all just settle down again), it will be about a million years before it is wet enough.

Which should give any local Noahs plenty of time to build their Arks. ®

[The Electrician]

That is enough to cover the area inside the M25 to a depth of about a yard, the BBC reports.

The BBC must have a clerk stashed away in a dusty basement somewhere with a green eyeshade and a calculator to figure out these inane volumetric comparisons. No doubt they do that in the US as well. Let's see... That's enough spaghetti sauce to fill, er, "one hundred Madison Square Gardens all the way from the hockey rink surface to the cheap seats". Uh, no, how about, "to fill Lake Pontchartrain' - oh, that's too large, and it's in flyover country, it won't mean a thing to the average New York Times reader. OK, how about "to cover Central Park to a depth of (calculate... calculate... calculate...) eight inches"? Yeah, that'll really make it clear to the readers, eveybody can relate to having eight inches of spaghetti sauce covering Central Park...

[UCANSEE2]

bookmark

[SampleMan]

More like the beginning of another Red Sea. I recommend buying now to get in on all of the new waterfront property. If this is already below sea level and it floods, its really going to throw off Bush's plans to drown poor New Orleanites with global warming. I'm going to go drive laps with my Suburban to ensure we stay ahead of the curve.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

eveybody can relate to having eight inches of spaghetti sauce covering Central Park...

Now you are gonna upset all the Italians who would see it as a waste of perfectly good spaghetti sauce....I like the stuff too...LOL!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I'm going to go drive laps with my Suburban to ensure we stay ahead of the curve.

ROFL!

I'll get my little Blazer working again so I can help you...can't produce as much though!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Actually things are moving along nicely in terms of Global warming....See this:

Trees on Antarctica in 200 years: researchers

[JimRed]

Anybody wanna buy some beachfront lots in Ethiopia?

[blam]

"An aerial view of north-eastern Africa. The Afar Triangle is the sandy-colored triangle bordering on the sea. "

It's okay. This whole area dried up during the last Ice Age. The next Ice Age will kill most of the people on earth and no-one will remember that the ocean wasn't there at one time when humanity recovers in 25-50,000 years from now.

[Marine_Uncle]

Looks like the Islamos have a few years before they are swallowed up in the sea.

[3niner]

Actually things are moving along nicely in terms of Global warming....

Yeah, we should enjoy it, while we've got it. The Earth was due for some better weather after the "Little Ice Age" which dominated about half of the second millenium A.D.

Unfortunately, we'll probably see the start of the next real ice age within 2,000 years, but I'm hoping the world will stay warm for the rest of my lifetime. Actually, I'm looking forward to the opening of the "Northwest Passage" (open ocean through the Arctic). That may happen during my lifetime.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

BBC has an answer for you:

How far off is the next ice age?

***********************************************

By Carolyn Fry

With global warming taking centre stage in the climate change debate, the idea that Earth might be heading towards an ice age seems outdated.

Yet scientists studying microfossils from deep-sea cores have discovered that we may still have much to learn about the cycles of ice advance and retreat that have affected Earth for a million years.

Periods of ice advance are known as glacials, while the warm periods are known as interglacials.

In the past, it was thought all interglacial periods lasted for around 11,000 years, in line with Earth's natural orbital cycle around the Sun, but new findings show events on the planet's surface may also influence the timing of ice advances and retreats.

It's possible that our pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere could somehow lubricate the flipping from one state to another Chronis Tzedakis, University of Leeds

It is important that we understand these natural climatic rhythms as our current interglacial has lasted 11,500 years and could potentially end at any time.

Although the current human-induced high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere are thought to be unprecedented in the recent geological record, some scientists argue that it's possible the changes we are making by pumping CO2 into the atmosphere could ultimately help usher in the next ice age.

"There are operations within the climate system that we still don't fully understand," explains Professor Chronis Tzedakis, from Leeds University, UK.

"It's possible that our pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere could somehow lubricate the flipping from one state to another."

Core value

Professor Tzedakis and colleagues studied tree pollen and tiny fossilised marine creatures called foraminifera from a sediment core taken close to the Tagus river estuary off the coast of Portugal.

Sea water contains two major isotopes, or types, of oxygen, O16 and O18. The O16 isotope is lighter and evaporates more readily than the heavier type.

When this happens during an ice age, O16 ends up being locked away in ice on land and the remaining seawater becomes enriched with the heavier O18 isotope.

Fluctuations show up in the chemical composition of foraminifera, which means they can be used to deduce the amount of ice volume that was around at the time they were alive.

Meanwhile, preserved pollen discharged into the sea by rivers reflects the extent of forest cover, which is known to increase and decrease with warming and cooling.

Extracting both sets of data from a single core provides scientists with a picture of changes occurring both on land and the sea.

Advance and retreat

In the 1990s, researchers had investigated the interglacial prior to the one we are in now, which began 132,000 years ago. So Professor Tzedakis' team opted to look farther back in time to the interglacials that started 240,000 and 340,000 years ago respectively.

They expected to see a similar pattern to the last interglacial findings, which had revealed the warm period lasted 16,000 years and that there was a 5,000-year time lag between the ice retreating and the appearance of forests, and again between the ice advancing and the trees disappearing.

However, the new findings showed up a completely different cycle of events.

"Much to our surprise we found that pattern was not replicated," said Professor Tzedakis.

"We didn't have a big lag between the onset of the interglacial and establishment of trees plus there wasn't the persistence of forests into the period of ice growth."

Of particular interest was the pollen data from the interglacial beginning 240,000 years ago as this showed the opposite sequence of events.

Here, the forests seem to have disappeared after 6,000 years of warmth, despite there being no detectable change in the amount of ice cover.

The decline mirrored reductions in atmospheric methane observed in ice cores from Antarctica, suggesting it was a global rather than local event that prompted their demise. Following the disappearance of the trees, the ice sheets then gradually advanced.

The scientists believe this shows that different mechanisms operating within Earth's climate system can impinge on the underlying orbital controls of glacial-interglacial cycles.

In the case of the trees disappearing from Portugal before the advance in ice they believe an unknown global event, which may have also caused lower atmospheric methane levels, prompted them to die back.

Global impact

If vast areas of heat-absorbing forests in Siberia were also affected and replaced by tundra, this would have increased the solar energy reflected back into the atmosphere, in turn cooling the planet's surface temperature and encouraging ice growth.

It is this unusual turn of events which has got the scientists thinking that our impact on global climate could yet prompt the return of another ice age, despite the fact that global temperatures are currently increasing.

They now plan to extend their research to look back at one more interglacial, which began 400,000 years ago. This has the best potential to shed light on future climate change as the natural geometry of the Earth's orbit was the same at that time as it is today.

Both [man-made] and natural changes in forest cover have a significant effect on climate Chris Jones, Hadley Centre

"It's a fascinating period," says Professor Tzedakis. "It appears to have been quite warm and wet and to have lasted a long time; possibly 30,000 years. Within the context of our present study it will be important to see how the forest reacted within the ice-free period."

Although today's unnaturally CO2-rich atmosphere is not replicated in climatic records of the recent past, the information gleaned from cores provides a means for scientists to test the accuracy of models designed to predict future climate changes.

At the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, scientists are finding that land cover has an important role in influencing climate.

"We're increasingly finding that we have to include the effects of changes in land cover in our models," said carbon cycle research scientist Chris Jones.

"Both [man-made] and natural changes in forest cover have a significant effect on climate, so being able to understand how changes in cover worked in ancient climates is extremely useful."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/4081541.stm

Published: 2004/12/09 11:48:17 GMT

[NormsRevenge]

Gee, I was getting all excited about this story until I reached the second to last paragraph. A million years?

Never mind.

--

You expected it to happen overnite?
We're just a bunch of 24 by 7 36-hour newscyclers.. lol

That would be one heck of a show to watch over a couple decades, tho. ;-).

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

See this also:

Not by Fire but by Ice
THE NEXT ICE AGE - NOW!

*********************************************************AN EXCERPT ************************************

Discover What Killed the Dinosaurs . . . and Why it Could Soon Kill Us

**********************

Updated July 19, 2006

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Harshest frosts in 20 years in Australia - 26 Jun 06  
See what's happening in other parts of the world  
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Record low temperatures in two states – 9 Jul 06  
See Record Low Temperatures across the United States
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Water's Nice, But Not as Ice - 9 Jul 06
"A little ice to cool a drink on a hot summer's day is nice, but when you think of it 
as an Ice Age, it becomes an inexorable force of Nature more to be feared than any 
fictional global warming."
See excerpts from a great article by Alan Caruba: Water's Nice, but not as Ice
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Icebreakers can’t keep up - 5 Jul 06
Icebreakers are having trouble getting through unusual ice build-up in McMurdo Sound. 
See Ice Breakers Can't Keep Up
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Much more at the LINK!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Glaciers are growing around the world, including the United States
See Growing_Glaciers 
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Underwater volcanic activity more important than we know
See It's not global warming, it's ocean warming (caused by underwater volcanoes)
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							The next ice age could begin any day. Next week, next month, next year, it's not a question of if, only when. One day you'll wake up -- or you won't wake up, rather -- buried beneath nine stories of snow. It's all part of a dependable, predictable cycle, a natural cycle that returns like clockwork every 11,500 years. . . . And since the last ice age ended almost exactly 11,500 years ago . .
	Click on photo  to order book
							It’s a natural cycle! … it’s a cycle … it’s a cycle … it’s a cycle
	Book Reviews Press Release Excerpts Table of Contents Radio & TV Interviews Author Photo						"Staggering in its implications. A must-read." Welcome. You've reached Robert Felix's home page. Here's some information about my book. Beginning with the dinosaur extinction of 65 million years ago, Not by Fire but by Ice explores the relationship between mass extinctions, ice ages, and magnetic reversals (times when compasses would have pointed south instead of north).

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Scientists respond to Gore's warnings of climate catastrophe - 12 June 06 
What do world climate experts think about the science of Al Gore’s movie?  
"Gore's circumstantial arguments are so weak that they are pathetic,” says Professor 
Bob Carter of the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, in Australia . 
“It is simply incredible that they, and his film, are commanding public attention." "The man 
is an embarrassment to US science and its many fine practitioners, a lot of whom know 
(but feel unable to state publicly) that his propaganda crusade is mostly based on junk science."
See Gore’s Pathetic Arguments
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Global warming is a hoax
5 Jun 06 — William Gray, professor emeritus, works in the atmospheric 
science department of Colorado State University. And he's outraged.  
“Global warming is a hoax," says Gray.
See Global Warming is a Hoax
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Kyoto is pointless, say 60 leading scientists
4 Apr 2006 - In an open letter to Canada's new prime minister, more than 60 leading 
international climate-change experts ask him to review Canada's global warming policies.
The list of brave signatories looks like a list of “Who’s Who” of the world’s scientists.  
See Kyoto Pointless
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Arctic Sea Level Falling - 15 Jun 06
Arctic sea level has been falling more than 2mm a year - a movement
that [supposedly] sets the region against the global trend of rising waters.
See Arctic Sea Level Falling

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   Click here for many more  
Recent Great Links

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I recently received an e-mail from Ruth O’Donnell asking about warming in the Arctic 
Circle. Ruth owns my tapes and reads my website often, but worries that I seem to ignore 
lots of evidence that points to global warming. I'd like to answer Ruth's questions.
See Arctic Warming

Proof of Global Warming
	Click here for larger version: Proof of Global Warming

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                                                                    Is it safe where you live?  
                                                                            See Ice-Age Map

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Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow - 2 Jun 06

While Al Gore prattles on about global warming, here’s a great article by Joseph D'Aleo 
showing that winter levels of ice and snow across many parts of the hemisphere are higher 
than they have been in many years - in some places higher than they’ve been in more than 
a century.

See Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow
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What’s the truth on global warming? - 8 Jun -06
Blame the sun, says this weather service website.
See Global Warming Truth

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

We need it to happen fast so we have a place to put the water from the melting Glaciers....

[NormsRevenge]

LOL... Good point!

[Quix]

I think it won't take near that long.

We shall see extremely dramatic geological changes in our lifetimes which geologists have long thought impossible.

This is probably but one and a minor one, at that.

[Redmen4ever]

Sheik, Sheik, Sheik
Sheik, Sheik, Sheik,
Sheik Djibouti, Sheik Djibouti

KC & the Sunshine Band

[Quix]

Seems to me . . . that the "experts" (truly ex spurts)

insisted that nothing like a 30-40 foot virtical displacement off Sumatra could not have instantly happened, either. But it did.

And, they seem to feel that the 27 or whatever odd feet crack over 3 weeks was durn nai impossible, too. But it happened.

Now, does some bright geologist without his brain stuck on fossilized have the courage to extrapolate 27 or whatever feet over 3 weeks into say something AVERAGING similar over say 15-25 years? Seems to me the sea could engulf such in a lot less than they've projected.

[Quix]

Ping for the pic.

Uhhhh would someone you know like that pic? Or are more natural ones preferred?