Africa tearing into two continents; Report
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Africa is tearing into two continents with a new Ocean that could eventually open up according to a new report by IFLScience
Africa is tearing into two continents with a new Ocean that could eventually open up according to a new report by IFLScience.
According to the report, Africa is slowly splitting in two in a long process that will take millions upon millions of years.
The process will eventually see part of East Africa chip off from the rest of the continent, likely resulting in a new ocean arising between the two land masses.
The colossal breakup is associated with the East African Rift System (EARS), one of the largest rifts in the world that stretches downward for thousands of kilometers through several countries in Africa, including Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, and Mozambique.
The rift system means that the African plate is splitting into two – the smaller Somalian plate and the larger Nubian plate – that are pulling away from each other at a super-sluggish pace of millimeters per year.
Back in 2018, news of a crack emerging in Kenya went viral, with many claiming that this was evidence of Africa snapping in two before our eyes.
While this startling scene was related to the EARS, it’s a bit misleading to present it as live evidence of Africa’s great split-up.
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The reports pointed out that it was likely just a highly localized expression of the valley’s regular rifting activity.
The EARS has been in this current process for around 25 million years and the crack in Kenya was an indirect whisper of what’s occurring on the continent.
However, in another 5 million to 10 million years, changes in the EARS could result in a drastically different-looking world.
Around this timeframe, a new ocean is likely to form between the Somalian plate and the Nubian plate.
The great continent of Africa will lose its eastern shoulder and a vast sea will cut off East Africa.
The report adds that Earth’s surface is in a constant state of flux; it’s just so slow that human experience can’t account for it.
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