A Fragmented Africa

When people think of Africa being fragmented, they usually think of things like politics, tribalism, and nepotism. They don’t tend to think about geology:

africa crack

Geologists working in Ethiopia have found that a 60-meter-long canyon is steadily expanding and will allow a new ocean to form — one which will bisect the African continent.

The shifting of molten rock beneath the Earth’s surface initially caused the rift in the remote Afar region of Ethiopia and, as those underground eruptions are continuing, the rift will continue to widen — and, in about 10 million years, create a vastly different Africa.

“Eventually this will drift apart…. The sea will flood in and will start to create this new ocean. It will pull apart, sink down deeper and deeper and eventually… parts of southern Ethiopia, Somalia will drift off, create a new island, and we’ll have a smaller Africa and a very big island that floats out into the Indian Ocean,” says seismologist James Hammond.

In other news, also, in 10 million years we might see a handful of the Millennium Development Goals finally realized. (I kid!)

via io9

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About the author: Jonathan Gosier is a UI designer, software developer and writer. He currently lives in Kampala, Uganda where he incubates and invests in East African entrepreneurs as the CEO of Appfrica Labs. He's also a TED Fellow.
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Interesting article.
Was there not a time when the Sahara desert was an ocean.
I can see this kind of change happening in many parts of the world as we constantly destroy our planet for riches.
Eastern Africa has always been the most historically rich, yet under appeciated places in the world. Lake Turkana http://www.omovalley.com/Lake-Turkana-in-Kenya-it... is perhaps the area that is the origin of humans.
I'm not sure that this has anything to do with global warming, the pursuit of riches, or anything other than tectonic shift. Kind of like how California is going to break apart at some point regardless of what people do.

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