A New Ocean!

Geologists say a crack that opened up last year may eventually reach the Red Sea, isolating much of Ethiopia and Eritrea from the rest of Africa.

This is quite amazing.

news.bbc.co.uk...

Do you think we will have a new ocean in our lifetime?

[edit on 7/19/2006 by AndrewTB]


[edit on 7/19/2006 by AndrewTB]

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Originally posted by AndrewTB

This is quite amazing.

Do you think we will have a new ocean in our lifetime?

Nope. It will be something, but it will take far longer than 80 - 100 years for the gap to expand into an ocean

Though there are no concrete size categories for bodies of water, an ocean is usually described as the principal amount of salt water on the surface of the earth. As such, only the largest bodies of water relative to the total amount of water on earth can be called oceans. So in our lifetimes I imagine we may get to see the crack turn into at most a sea, which is a subdivision of an ocean.

I don't think it'll be an ocean until Africa is split completely in half. Even our great grandchildren won't see that.

hi -- here are some pretty pictures

todays times has a good graphic :



here is the fullsized file

the times story is near identical to the BBC , so i will not re hash it . except to quote :

Derek Keir of Royal Holloway, who also contributed to the research, said: "Every rift system has to evolve in stages, and the rift system in the Afar desert is proceeding as if it were a mid-ocean rift. We think it has the potential eventually to form an ocean."

Originally posted by AndrewTB
Do you think we will have a new ocean in our lifetime?

No. Its part of a tectonic process, humanity itself probably won't exist by the time it opens up.

The african rift valley is an arm of a three part rift, one arm is completely failed, as I understand it, and the other arm is the red sea. The red sea is, infact, a nascent ocean itself.

But I agree 100%, absolutely fascinating no?