Another ocean is forming

The 56-kilometer crack in Africa could become a new ocean on earth.

The crack - more than 6 meters wide - was discovered in the desert of Ethiopia in 2005. Just then some geologists believed it could create a new ocean. This view is controversial in the scientific community during the past few years, but no one has studied the crack.

Livescience said a group of international experts had come to Ethiopia to study the cause of the crack appearing and its future. They found that the process of creating cracks is exactly the same as what is happening under the ocean floor. This proves that a new ocean is forming right in the middle of the black continent. When the crack widens, it will also split the Red Sea.

The research team used geological data from 2005 to reconstruct the process of crack formation by simulation model. The results show that the crack was created after an active volcano and sprayed lava onto the ground. Within a few days the crack had reached a length of 56 km and it was still going forward (south and north).

The crack is 56 km long in the Afar Desert of Ethiopia.Photo: University of Leeds (UK).

'We all know that gigantic reefs in the seabed are created when volcanic lava erupts from cracks. But we never knew that an extremely long crack could occur in just a few days , "said Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Rochester.

Two African and Arab tectonic plates meet in the Afar desert in northern Ethiopia. During the past 30 million years they are separating at a rate of about 2 cm per year. The process of creating Red Sea and depression is 298 km in the Afar desert. The team thinks that the Red Sea will flow into a new ocean in about a million years. The new ocean will also connect the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden. (a branch of the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Somalia).