Geologists Determine African Rift to Be Ocean in the Making

The oceans have long been a source of inspiration for us. Perhaps the seas evoke a response in some hidden, remnant bits and pieces from our aquatic evolutionary past. Or perhaps it's much more simple: whether we're lucky enough to live near a coast, or we get to travel from our landlocked locations to take in our first look at the ocean, there's something truly awe-inspiring about seeing nothing but water as far as the eye can see until the curve of the Earth takes over.

Geologists are currently finding excitement and inspiration in the opportunity to watch an ocean being born, right before our very eyes. The beaches should be open for business in about a million years, which in the context of geological time is a wink of a girl from Ipanema's eye.

The nascent ocean will eventually be found where Africa is tearing apart. Geologists have long known that the Great Rift Valley (the 3,700-mile-long system of faults, ridges and rifts running south from Syria through Mozambique in eastern Africa) reflects a process of continental separation that began approximately 20 million years ago. It has additionally been long suspected that it would just be a matter of geologic time before seawater would find its way in.

However, a recent set of findings stemming from seismic and volcanic activity in Ethiopia provide proof that what we're seeing is the early stages of ocean formation.

As reported by PhysOrg and Live Science, an international team of geologists has pored over the data from a 2005 seismic event and its ensuing 35-mile rupture in the Earth's surface. What they have determined is that the exact same geophysical processes that govern continental plate separation, sea floor spreading and ocean widening that are in play, for example, at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean are at work in Africa. Eventually, the rifting process will permit water from the Red Sea from the north and the Indian Ocean from the south to inundate the zone of separation between the African and Arabian tectonic plates.

The team's findings are currently published in the American Geophysical Union's journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Image courtesy of Zyzzy, via Wikimedia Commons