Africa’s splitting plates could give birth to a new ocean

Africa’s splitting plates could give birth to a new ocean

Subject: Geography

Section: Physical Geography

Context: The emergence of a new coastline is on the horizon, but not without its consequences. Scientists, in 2020, predicted a new ocean would be created as Africa gradually splits into two separate parts.

More on the News:

• The division of the continent is connected to the East African Rift, a crack that stretches 56 kilometres and appeared in the desert of Ethiopia in 2005, triggering the formation of a new sea.
• The geological process will inevitably divide the continent, resulting in currently landlocked countries, such as Uganda and Zambia, obtaining their own coastlines in due time, which would take five to 10 million years.
• The necessary evacuation of people and the potential loss of lives will be an unfortunate cost of this natural phenomenon.
• However, on the upside, the emergence of new coastlines will unlock a myriad of opportunities for economic growth. The countries will have access to new ports for trade, as well as fishing grounds and sub-sea internet infrastructure, which will undoubtedly transform their economic potential.
• The three plates — the Nubian African Plate, Somalian African Plate and Arabian Plate — are separating at different speeds. The Arabian Plate is moving away from Africa at a rate of about an inch per year, while the two African plates are separating even slower, between half an inch to 0.2 inches per year.

• Somali and Nubian tectonic plates continue to pull apart from each other, a smaller continent will be created from the rift, which will include present-day Somalia and parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania.
• The Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will eventually flood into the Afar region in Ethiopia and the East African Rift Valley, leading to the formation of a new ocean.
• The new ocean will result in East Africa becoming a separate small continent with its own unique geographic and ecological characteristics.

Great Rift Valley

• The Great Rift Valley is a massive geological formation that stretches around 6,400 kilometers from northern Syria to central Mozambique in East Africa.
• The valley is home to the Jordan River, which flows through the Jordan Valley and eventually empties into the Dead Sea on the border between Israel and Jordan.
• The Gulf of Aden is an eastward continuation of the Rift, and from there it extends southeastward as part of the mid-oceanic ridge of the Indian Ocean.
• In eastern Africa, the valley divides into the Eastern Rift and the Western Rift. The Western Rift, also known as the Albertine Rift, contains some of the deepest lakes in the world.

Rifting:

• Rifting refers to the process of the Earth’s crust and lithosphere being pulled apart, resulting in the formation of a rift valley or basin. This process can occur at divergent plate boundaries, where two tectonic plates move away from each other, or within a continent, where tensional forces can cause the crust to stretch and thin.
• In the case of divergent plate boundaries, rifting is often associated with the formation of mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust is created as magma rises up from the mantle and solidifies. As the plates move apart, the distance between the ridges increases and the ocean basin widens.
• Within a continent, rifting can lead to the formation of a rift valley or basin, which may eventually become a new ocean basin if the rift continues to widen and eventually splits the continent in two. The East African Rift Valley is one example of an active rift zone that is currently in the process of pulling apart the African continent.
• Rifting can have a significant impact on the Earth’s surface, leading to earthquakes, volcanic activity, and the creation of new landforms. It is also an important geological process in the formation and evolution of the Earth’s crust and lithosphere.
• One example of an active rift zone is the East African Rift Valley, which stretches over 6,000 km from Syria in the north to Mozambique in the south. This region is undergoing active rifting and is characterized by volcanoes, hot springs, and seismic activity.