New ocean forming in African desert | Hacker News Reader

New ocean forming in African desert

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86 pointsrglullis8 comments

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Actual scientific content and pictures here: http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3486

Scientific content: http://www.ees.rochester.edu/ebinger/Site/Publications_files...

More photos: http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/afar/websitepages/photogallery1.h...

From: http://www.livescience.com/environment/091102-africa-rift-oc...

"The thinking is that the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea in a million years or so."

So I guess there's still time to submit planning applications to build fancy new hotels on the ocean-side...

Shame, would have been nice to see a new massive ocean appear there in, say, 50 years... I guess it might be rather disruptive to the people living nearby though.

All the articles state a similar previous rift that caused the formation of the Red Sea took 30 million years. This Ethiopian rift is a combination of volcanic activity and tectonic plate movement ( from what i can read from other related articles ). How soon could this happen? Any ideas?. Just curious.

This article claims that it could take 4 million years for the crack to each the red sea.

Typically, spreading rates are measured in millimeters a year. I don't know what the spreading rate is for this rift.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18114-giant-crack-in-a...

There was a very rapid expansion of 20 feet in a matter of days, but that was a few years ago.

"Ayele's reconstruction of events showed that the rift did not open in a series of small earthquakes over an extended period of time, but tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days."

Is spreading rate really the thing to measure here?

Once the rift reaches the red sea, we'd have the worlds skinniest ocean.

I want to know elongation rate. Is the whole rift spreading as one unit? Is it starting in the middle, and slowly working toward the red sea?

Yes, spreading rate is really the thing to measure. The reason being, is that this region is faulted and rifted throughout. This particular rift is one of many. Rather than elongating; the rifts will join and will connect northward to the Red Sea. It seems that rifts are nearly connecting now. Though, it will take millions of years to finish this connection and create this sea.

I found some information on the spreading rates. Seems the plates are spreading at rates of 15 mm/yr in the north and 6 mm/yr in the south.

Here are some other references: http://www.ees.rochester.edu/ebinger/Site/Publications_files... http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/afar/index.htm

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