Posted on 07/20/2006 9:08:26 AM PDT by 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. ®
dirka dirka djibouti.
How wet is wet enough? Can we help it along?
I didn't think 2.5 cubic Km sounded like that much until I realized it would be a kilometer high.
I am already aware that the Earth will almost certainly reach an average temperature 5 degrees cooler than the present, before it gets 5 degrees warmer.
I am also aware that a warmer Earth would be far more pleasant than a colder Earth. Just compare the conditions today (and during the Medieval Warm Period) to those from the Little Ice Age for a rough idea.
If we all jump up and down at the same time, we can force the crack to open wider.
It will be like any large body of water. If it finds a crack, it will rush through it to seek a position of rest. (lowest point).
As it is rushing through, it will enlarge the path. That means more, and more, and more, and it never stops until balance (equilibrium) is achieved.
Hmm ... waterfront lots on both sides of the rift in a million years or so? That's a long-term inventment.
Yes, and the ultimate gift to my descendants.
For that matter, water is bound to accumulate in the crater where Iran used to be. Whoops, I've said too much. ;')
E, I think we've had one or more topics about this for the GGG, or somethin'. I'll check it out. Thanks for the ping.
:'D You make FR fun. ;')
ah, here they are:
Scientists: Fissure Could Become New Ocean (Ethiopia)
news.yahoo.com | Sat Dec 10,12:45 AM ET | By ANTHONY MITCHELL
Posted on 12/10/2005 6:36:33 PM EST by Esther Ruth
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1537997/posts
Africa's New Ocean: A Continent Splits Apart
Spiegel | 03/15/2006 | Axel Bojanowski
Posted on 03/15/2006 10:15:27 AM EST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1596734/posts
Evidence of Plate Tectonics - East African Rift Spreading
www.livescience.com | 19 July 2006 | Sara Goudarzi
Posted on 07/19/2006 3:39:07 PM EDT by 2nsdammit
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1668655/posts
Breaking news.
No doubt about that.
But that could be hours, days, weeks, months in some respects. I suspect it will be less than a year and at least less than 3 or so years.
The Sumatran instant undersea cliff was just a hint of things to come, imho.
Geez, I thought I had a first here.....oh well.
ROFL!
Any true expert would have known that could happen. We have plenty of prior experience with major displacements. Tens of feet is not unusual for a massive event. The 1964 Alaskan earthquake had similar measured vertical displacement on land, with even higher displacement suspected on the sea floor. The 1960 Chile earthquake had somewhat less vertical displacement, but similar magnitude.
Geologists have plenty of experience with events of this size, given that it happened at all, the specific results were not out of the ordinary for an event of that size.
I'd have thought so.
I edited the papers of one of Taiwan's top . . . scientists
They seem quite candid there.
But so many here seem to be of the naysaying crowd about future possibilities--insisting that super massive, super dramatic things just do not happen in geology. That geology is all about incremental things over millenia.
Glad some are different. What's the percentage of them who have a more realistic perspective?
Well, the USGS is the de facto global authority for a lot of this data collection and research. Their sources clearly show that this type of displacement is typical for seismic events of a certain size. They don't just have data from events in modern history, they have a ton of data for geological events that happened prior to a historical record. If you are looking for people under the illusion that cataclysmic shifts in the earth don't happen, the USGS isn't where you look for them. Some of the horizontal displacements for major earthquakes in the 20th century were as large as a quarter kilometer as well.
Thanks for the ping!
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