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A brand new ocean? What’s occurring in northern Africa

A brand new ocean? What’s occurring in northern Africa

Tens of millions of years from now, Northern Africa may very well be residence to a brand new ocean as tectonic plates pull aside alongside the East African Rift System, scientists say.

Specialists have lengthy identified that parts of the continent are separating by as a lot as 0.3 inches a 12 months in some locations. Volcanic and geologic proof in Ethiopia and elsewhere in Africa signifies the present oceans could at some point spill into the rising rift, severing a small portion of the continent from the higher bulk of Africa, in keeping with consultants.

“The area encompassing the Afar Despair and Pink Sea and Gulf of Aden spreading facilities is believed to broadly be the ultimate transition away from continental rifting to the event of true oceanic spreading within the jap Gulf of Aden and the Pink Sea,” scientists wrote in a 2024 research.

What’s occurring in Northern Africa to make a brand new ocean?

Scientists aren’t sure a brand new ocean will kind, however they are saying the geologic implications of the plates pulling aside point out it is probably. An identical course of created the close by Saudi Arabian peninsula.

Scientists have used GPS and satellite tv for pc mapping to trace how the tectonic plates underlying Africa are separating, particularly within the area often known as Afar, which incorporates northern Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea.

“Geologists imagine that, if spreading continues, the three plates that meet on the fringe of the present-day African continent will separate fully, permitting the Indian Ocean to flood the world and making the easternmost nook of Africa (the Horn of Africa) a big island,” federal scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey mentioned.

Analysis signifies the plates within the space are being pushed aside partially by magma rising up from deep within the Earth, making a measurable bulge and cracks the place the rocks are separating. Different elements are at play, together with the quantity of water underlying the world, research present.

Estimates put the timing of the attainable new ocean at someplace between 1 million to twenty million years from now. That is fairly quick on a geological scale, and plenty of scientists have researched the modifications, that are significantly seen as a result of they’re on land and never underneath one of many oceans.

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Remind me how plate tectonics work

The earth we stand on ‒ the bottom, not the planet Earth ‒ sits atop massive lots often known as tectonic plates. These plates are pulling aside, smashing collectively or sliding horizontally previous each other, unleashing volcanos and earthquakes as an indication of the motion.

You usually discover geological options like rift valleys, volcanos and geysers in areas the place plates are pulling aside. And you discover mountains the place they’re coming collectively, just like the Himalayas, which have been created someday round 40 million to 50 million years in the past because the Indian and Eurasian landmasses collided. That collision remains to be driving motion: The Himalayas are rising roughly 0.4 inches a 12 months, in keeping with the USGS.

In California, the San Andreas fault sits between the North American plate, which is sliding south, and the Pacific plate, which is sliding north. Sooner or later, consultants concern, California will endure “the Large One,” a devastating earthquake that can trigger widespread destruction in San Francisco, Los Angeles and different areas.

Iceland sits atop an analogous rift space as Northern Africa, and it is attainable to scuba dive right into a lake that has fashioned between the separating areas.

When was the final time we obtained a brand new ocean?

With out a lot fanfare ‒ or geological upheaval ‒ we final obtained a brand new ocean in 2021, when Nationwide Geographic Society scientists formally acknowledged the Southern Ocean encircling Antarctica as a definite physique of water. U.S. scientists had thought-about it a definite ocean for many years, but it surely took the 2021 recognition by the society to spur extra widespread acceptance.

That recognition gave it the identical stature because the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans.

Specialists say the Southern Ocean was fashioned about 30 million years in the past when the landmasses of Antarctica and South America separated, creating the slender and turbulent Drake Passage the place the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans be a part of.

A model of this story was revealed in February 2025.

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