Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

Americans don&#x27;t need to travel so far to see an ocean being born. The block-fault zone from the Sea of Cortez up through most of Nevada is pulling apart rapidly and has already created 500 miles of inlet between Baja California and mainland Mexico.<p>Much of the next few hundred miles north through the Salton Sea and Death Valley is already under sea level and all of Nevada has thinning crust that will eventually fall under sea level.<p>in fact, most of the valleys in Nevada, in spite of typical elevations around 4000 feet, are already below sea level. It&#x27;s just that they presently don&#x27;t have any outlet to the sea in the Great Basin so alluvium has collected as the fault-block mountains created by spreading erode. [0] When a river has a chance to cut down through that soft debris, the valley floors will quickly drop below sea level also.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fault_block#Fault-block_mountains" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Fault_block#Fault-block_mounta...</a>

TL;DR a split in Ethiopia is about 65km long. It&#x27;ll eventually split the African Continent in 10 million years. Hold off the oceanfront land speculation.<p>Article is from 2010 btw.

To anybody from the BBC reading this, please, please, with an article like this, a map tells more than a thousand words. I&#x27;m very familiar with the Afar Triangle, but please, include a map with an article like this in the future.<p>Thank you.

A single inlet, attached to the Red Sea -- wouldn&#x27;t this be a <i>Sea</i> and not an <i>Ocean</i>?<p>Also a story like this without a map is very annoying; my best guess as to where it is is here:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;@10.1384475,40.4893819,818636a,20y,26.6t&#x2F;data=!3m1!1e3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;maps&#x2F;@10.1384475,40.4893819,818636a,2...</a>

We should set up a webcam there and make a time lapse for the next 10 million years.

Here is a map: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubs.usgs.gov&#x2F;gip&#x2F;dynamic&#x2F;East_Africa.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pubs.usgs.gov&#x2F;gip&#x2F;dynamic&#x2F;East_Africa.html</a>

A map would be extremely useful to illustrate the process (instead of a picture of dirt). I am also not clear as to why the new waterway would be considered a &quot;new ocean.&quot; Would it not just form a strait or at most a sea as a part of the Indian Ocean?

Another article from 2013 reports conflicting evidence: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livescience.com&#x2F;39724-afar-rift-deep-mantle-melt.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.livescience.com&#x2F;39724-afar-rift-deep-mantle-melt....</a>

&quot;parts of the region are below sea level and the ocean is only cut off by about a 20-metre block of land in Eritrea.&quot;<p>This caught my eye. How big is this region that is just 20m away from being flooded? And 20m of Eritrea at that. Not exactly comparable IMHO to the rather more politically stable Netherlands.

&quot;It will pull apart, sink down deeper and deeper and eventually... parts of southern Ethiopia, Somalia will drift off, create a new island, and we&#x27;ll have a smaller Africa and a very big island that floats out into the Indian Ocean.&quot;<p>This sounds like the sequel to Madagascar

&gt; The researchers say that they are extremely lucky to be able to witness the birth of this ocean as the process is normally hidden beneath the seas.<p>What??? The birth of oceans usually happens &quot;beneath the seas&quot;...?

If that part of Africa splits from the rest of the continent, it will just be like Madagascar, which has been drifting away from Africa since we started noticed.

Why do articles related to geography and archeology always come with just one picture?

&gt;10 million years in the future<p>Well you can get away with making any prediction this way