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A Newly Forming Ocean May Split Africa Apart, Scientists Say
- In September 2005, a 35-mile fissure up to 26 feet wide opened rapidly in Ethiopia's Afar Depression, triggering hundreds of earthquakes and significant destruction.
- This event occurred at a tectonic triple junction where the African continent splits slowly due to a pulsing mantle plume rising beneath Afar.
- Researchers led by Emma Watts collected over 130 volcanic rock samples and confirmed rhythmic mantle pulses thin the lithosphere, causing eruptions and rifting.
- Watts explained that the mantle under the Afar region is dynamic rather than consistent, exhibiting periodic movements that contain unique chemical compositions, which sheds light on the connection between Earth's interior processes and its surface features.
- These findings imply East Africa will gradually split to form a new ocean, but scientists like Keranen stress its timing and precise path remain uncertain and dependent on mantle dynamics.
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An international team of scientists has discovered that the Earth's mantle beneath Ethiopia's Afar region pulses with waves of molten rock that are slowly tearing apart the African continent.
An international team of geologists detected deep pulses of molten rock under Africa that could be the prelude to a gigantic geological transformation: the division of the continent. According to the study, led by the British universities of Swansea and Southampton, a huge crack already extends from northeastern Ethiopia to the south, fed by rhythmic waves of magma that push the earth’s crust from below. Scientists point out that this process, a…
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