Africa And Asia Are Drifting Away from Each Other
By BRIGHT SIDE
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Right now, an immense geological event is taking place in Africa, where the continent is literally ripping itself apart! Deep within the East African Rift System, which stretches for thousands of miles, the Nubian and Somali tectonic plates are slowly pulling away from each other. This massive fracture is driven by extreme heat and rising magma from the Earth's mantle. The shifting plates cause earthquakes, open giant surface cracks, and fuel intense volcanic activity, like the dramatic 60-kilometer crack that appeared in Ethiopia back in 2005. While it will take millions of years, water from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean will eventually flood this rift, birthing a brand-new, sixth ocean right where dry land is today. Credit: CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0: Ol Doinyo Lengai volcano in Tanzania 20120217: By milosh9k, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27560441 CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/: Tectonic plates: By M.Bitto
Tags: afar region ethiopia, africa splitting apart, brightside, brightsideglobal, continental drift, curiosities, earth, earth crust cracks, earth reshaping itself, earth's newest ocean, east african rift, geology explained, magma plumes, mystery, natural phenomena, new ocean forming, nubian and somali plates, planet, rift valley formation, science news
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