Africa is splitting apart at surprising speed and could create new ocean as deep as the Atlantic, experts warn
AFRICA is splitting apart at double the speed than scientists first thought.
A 35-mile-long crack in Ethiopia’s desert, first discovered in 2005, has been widening by half an inch per year.
That’s twice as fast as the rate at which toenails grow.
Researchers previously believed the fissure would split the continent in two, a process that would take tens of millions of years.
But a scientist has recently warned that it would likely happen within one to five million years.
Africa’s tectonic plates have collided to form large mountains and pulled apart to create vast basins; they now appear to be splitting the continent in two.
“What might happen is that the waters of the Indian Ocean would come in and flood what is now the East African Rift Valley,” Ken Macdonald, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the Mail Online.
The split would create a new ocean, and a small new continent that the professor said could be called the “Nubian continent”.
Somalia and parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania will form a distinct continent, accompanied by a fresh coastline.
The new ocean could become as deep as the Atlantic if waters continue to flow into the area, added Macdonald.
Six landlocked countries, including Malawi, Zambia, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, could finally gain beaches—should they still exist that far into the future.
Continental drift hasn’t been observed for hundreds of millions of years.
“In the human life scale, you won’t be seeing many changes,” Macdonald explained.
“You’ll be feeling earthquakes, you’ll be seeing volcanoes erupt, but you won’t see the ocean intrude in our lifetimes.”
A new ocean
Africa is home to some of the largest lakes on Earth, known as the African Great Lakes.
The water from these lakes is expected to feed the new ocean.
The lakes account for about 25 per cent of all the unfrozen surface fresh water on the planet, according to former Nasa and Space Force consultant Alexandra Doten.
“And they already hold about 10 percent of all of Earth’s fish species,” she said.
“The lakes formed because eastern Africa is separating from the rest of the continent.
“That Somali plate is continuing to move even further east, creating a giant rift valley right here. It keeps going.
“Eventually, Eastern Africa is going to become its new continent, separated from the rest of Africa by a new ocean.”
What is causing Africa to split?
The geological process is known as “continental rifting”, where tectonic plates move away from one another.
Underneath the crust, hotspots of magma forced through weaknesses in the crust and eventually split it.
The process usually happens over tens of millions of years.
Continental rifting is nothing new for Earth—and is the reason why we have seven continents today.
Roughly 240 million years ago, long before humans roamed, Earth was home to just one supercontinent known as Pangaea.
But scientists believe that about 200 million years ago, that giant landmass began to be torn apart when a three-pronged fissure grew between Africa, South America, and North America.
The Scottish Highlands, the Appalachians, and the Atlas Mountains were actually all part of the same mountain range on Pangaea, but were torn apart by continental drift.