A new ocean is forming in the hottest place on Earth, and it’s putting on one hell of a show. In the Afar Triangle – a region of northeastern Africa where summer temps hit 131 degrees Fahrenheit and scientists have armed bodyguards for protection against guerrillas – the ground is splitting apart, making room for a sea. The process usually takes eons, but last autumn several vents suddenly cracked open, spewing hot gases and ash near where geologists were working. When the dust settled, researchers found a 40-mile-long, lava-filled fissure that hadn’t been there six days earlier.
It turns out that Afar’s metamorphosis is part of the formation of an ocean ridge, an upwelling of ultrahot material from beneath the Earth’s crust that helps push apart tectonic plates. Not a weird occurrence in itself – it’s how the Atlantic and the Pacific were created, after all – “but usually it’s below 3,000 meters of water,” says Purdue geophysicist Eric Calais, one of the onsite researchers.
So when does the ocean show up? A million years, give or take. Parts of the triangle are 300 feet below sea level, but a mountain range in Eritrea is holding back the Red Sea like a dam. (Moses would be proud.) Eventually, Afar will sink low enough and water will rush around the ends of the range, separating parts of Ethiopia and Somalia from the mainland. Interested in a long-term real estate investment? It’ll all be beachfront property someday!
– Michael Reilly
Fissures in the Afar Triangle that will one day be at the bottom of the ocean.
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