Crack in africa

Rifts exhibit a very distinctive topography, characterized by a series of fault-bounded depressions surrounded by higher terrain. In the East African system, a series of aligned rift valleys separated from each other by large bounding faults can be clearly seen from space.

Not all of these fractures formed at the same time, but followed a sequence starting in the Afar region in northern Ethiopia at around 30m years ago and propagating southwards towards Zimbabwe at a mean rate of between 2. Although most of the time rifting is unnoticeable to us, the formation of new faults, fissures and cracks or renewed movement along old faults as the Nubian and Somali plates continue moving apart can result in earthquakes.

However, in East Africa most of this seismicity is spread over a wide zone across the rift valley and is of relatively small magnitude.

Volcanism running alongside is a further surface manifestation of the ongoing process of continental break up and the proximity of the hot molten asthenosphere to the surface.

The East African Rift is unique in that it allows us to observe different stages of rifting along its length. To the south, where the rift is young, extension rates are low and faulting occurs over a wide area. Volcanism and seismicity are limited. Towards the Afar region, however, the entire rift valley floor is covered with volcanic rocks.

This suggests that, in this area, the lithosphere has thinned almost to the point of complete break up. When this happens, a new ocean will begin forming by the solidification of magma in the space created by the broken-up plates. Eventually, over a period of tens of millions of years, seafloor spreading will progress along the entire length of the rift.

The ocean will flood in and, as a result, the African continent will become smaller and there will be a large island in the Indian Ocean composed of parts of Ethiopia and Somalia, including the Horn of Africa.

The African and Arabian plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia and have been spreading apart in a rifting process — at a speed of less than 1 inch per year — for the past 30 million years.

This rifting formed the mile Afar depression and the Red Sea. The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so. Others downplayed the crack as a result of heavy rains, and not shifting plates on the Earth's crust. To me it looks pretty cut and dry. It wasn't a result of the tectonics, it was the result of the weather. Restoring America. More Washington Examiner. Friday January 14, A Republican lawmaker that Dr.

Novak Djokovic's Australian visa canceled for a second time Christopher Hutton. Tennis player Novak Djokovic's visa was canceled for a second time days before he was scheduled to appear at the Australian Open. Biden abandons bipartisanship as agenda stalls Haisten Willis. While the Mount Dabbahu rift is still hundreds of kilometres inland, Ebinger says it could continue to widen and lengthen.

Eventually it could reach the east coast of Ethiopia and fill up with seawater. Other areas in the Afar region are below sea level, however, and could see flooding before that if similar rifting occurs near the coastal volcanoes to the north and east that form a natural levee against the sea. Macdonald says the process of continental plates spreading apart and filling in with magma is analogous to what happens on the deep seafloor at mid-ocean ridges, which are difficult to study because they lie a few kilometres under water.