Tag Archives: plate tectonics

New ocean imminent in Africa

In epic multi-million-year world-changing news we find that a new ocean is forming as the African continent splits in two:

In northeastern Ethiopia one of the earth’s driest deserts is making way for a new ocean. This region of the African continent, known to geologists as the Afar Depression, is pulling apart in two directions—a process that is gradually thinning the earth’s rocky outer skin.

[from Scientific American via Slashdot][image from Joshua Davis on flickr]