New Ocean being Formed in Africa

PenguinRadio writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting on a 37-mile long fissure that split open in September in the Afar desert in Ethiopia that could be the start of a new ocean forming. The fissure, which grew 8 meters wide in 3 weeks following an earthquake on Sept 14, is now splitting at about 0.8 inches per year, would eventually lead to Ethiopia eastern portions becoming an island in a million years or so. The findings were presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting taking place in San Francisco this week. The BBC reports that formation of a ocean basin is the first step toward developing an ocean, but that it will be millions of years before that could occur."

Comments

Sort of jumping the gun here

[ebuck]

Within the article it states that many prospective ocean basins fizz out and never really develop into ocean basins.

So, are there reasons to expect that this one will develop into a full fledged ocean? I mean, it is not easy to predict future events, but without some measure of certainty, wouldn't a more appropriate title have been "Giant Fissure in Ethiopia Continues to Grow"?

Future Lake?

[nurb432]

Given the timefram here, how do we *know* its going to be a ocean?

Oceans are pretty damned large. This thing may never surpass 'lake' stage. Or even just a big mud puddle that reverts back to 'land' when it dries up.

Million Year estimates...

[hackwrench]

The fissure grows 8 meters wide in 3 weeks following an earthquake on Sept 14, and then increases at a rate of about 0.8 inches per year. Given the first metric is even possible, it's absurd to think that the the second rate will remain constant so projection to millions of years is invalid. It would be just as valid to conclude that the increase is decelerating and eventually close back up.

Re:Million Year estimates...

[patternjuggler]

The fissure grows 8 meters wide in 3 weeks following an earthquake on Sept 14, and then increases at a rate of about 0.8 inches per year. Given the first metric is even possible, it's absurd to think that the the second rate will remain constant so projection to millions of years is invalid. It would be just as valid to conclude that the increase is decelerating and eventually close back up.

'millions of years' sounds vague enough to fit the evidence. You'll notice that when someone says 'a million years from now' they don't mean A.D. 1,002,005 - the missing zeros are an indication of a lack of precision.

I assume there are more inputs to the claim than a couple of observed rates- like corroboration with knowledge of plate movements there and in adjacent regions from other sources, e.g. given that the plate is moving, and there are no other causes to show that the movement will be opposed by other plates or whatever processes are thought to govern this, it seems pretty safe to say the plate will continue to move at some average rate (though speeding up and slowing down is certainly possible) in the same direction.

Re:A better version of the answer :)

[roman_mir]

One man's Troll is the other man's Funny and is the third man's Truth.

Re:bookmark this

[roman_mir]

Something about the moderation of this post teaches me about the realities of the world. The parent post was moderated as 'Troll' at least 5 times by now. It was then moderated as Funny also just as many times.

What we are observing here on this miniscule scale is the gigantic battle that is taking place in this world. The battle between the forces of stupidity, obedience, fanatism, blind religiouos principles versus the forces of logic, humour, personal responsibility, scientific principles, and tolerance. /. can be viewed as reflection of the world.

.
BTW. I wanted everyone to note, that yesterday we lost a person, who was one of the people fighting this same battle. I don't need to tell you which side of the battle he was on.