Slashdot Mirror
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."
It's easier to form a new ocean than it is to ask the company for a raise.
fast as fast can be. you'll never catch me.
Shall I tell my kids to bookmark this article then? Just in case they forget when it all started?
Hey I have some great Ocean View Property in the middle of Africa. Email me if you're interested.
Time to snap up some cheap ethiopian desert land. Will be valuable beachfront holiday developments in a few hundred millenia or so.
Oh no... it's the future.
BBC article
Download my free songs!
Maybe we should hurry global warming along to melt the polar ice caps sooner so we have enough water to fill that new ocean.
Borrow money from a pessimist - they don't expect it back.
From Understanding Plate Motions
Where do I sign up for the $1 billion government grant to study this new "ocean"? Since it's going to take a while, I should build a nice palace -- uh, research station -- to observe this natural event.
God is obviously trying to cover up all those embarrassing hominid fossils he missed obliterating in the last flood.
"Even for Slashdot, that was a very obscure reference!" - Anonymous Coward
Dear God, look out! An ocean is forming. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo *gasp* oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oooooooo...
Happy people make bad consumers.
Today's swimming pool could turn into an ocean in a million years! Maybe a prophet or fortune teller could enlighten us further in subsequent comments?
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
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"?
Can't predict with any degree of certainty wether it will rain or snow a few days from now but they can predict that a crack in the ground now will form an ocean in a million years. In the middle of a desert. Ok.
New Oceanfront Property for sale in the middle of the Afar Desert. Don't miss this Once in a Lifetime long-term Investment Opportunity! Timeshare opportunities also available. Check out our Brochure!
I'll only be 1,000,027 years old when it all goes down. Prime surfing age...
Interesting that the guy in the article compared it to the Red Sea, as that is considered to be a failed ocean rift.
Be a real patriot: Question authority. Think for yourself. Formulate your own conclusions.
You're right in that it may not happen. What the scientists are excited about is that they get to actually see and record the inital process. I would imagine it's really exciting, like watching Sun 6800 console output during POST. After that, who knows what could happen.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
All that water from melting glaciers has to go somewhere.
Anyone for speeding it up? How many nukes can we toss in?
And now back to natural disasters.
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.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Looks like the new ocean will open just in time for the second coming.
but that it will be millions of years before that could occur
I can't wait!
Literally.
In my laziness, I didn't notice that the BBC link was actually in the article. But then apparantly, I am not the only one. Neither did the mods!
Heehee what a hoot!
Download my free songs!
... before they get stranded
Can't wait.
MadOgre.com
Three Days Before the Fissure Formed:
Ghost of Haile Selassie: Oh Lord, restore my home. Allow them access to the sea, that they might flourish again.
God: Sure thing, mac.
Three Days After:
God: Happy yet?
Ghost: I meant give us back Eritrea!
God: That'll teach you to pray
i wonder if the Island of Madagascar got its start this way, if you look at it like a jigsaw puzzle it would fit right in to the east coast of the continent Africa
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
That is not too far from the truth. There is so much grant money, and it is so easy to get. There is a lot of red tape, and paperwork, but once you learn the system, you can have a nice stream of never-ending cash for whatever research you wish.
After seeing others get grants, I think I want to go back to university and get a Ph.D. in sociology. I'll do my Ph.D. on the effects of having a million dollar trust fund and driving a ferrari. Now I just need to fill out that application for the grant.
splitting at about 0.8 inches per year, would eventually lead to Ethiopia eastern portions becoming an island in a million years or so
And by then the sun might supernova because someone else got a grant before yours. They wanted to fly a nuclear powered research starship into the center of the sun. *KABOOM*.
The only cool thing about this new water source is, will it create land that can support growing food? If the anwser is yes, then it will be a blessing, even if all we get today is a river a few meters wide.
The Afar region has been stretching apart, in the process of forming a new ocean, for the last 10 or 20 million years. Stretching rates in various parts of the rift vary from 6 to 12mm per year. Parts of the Afar region are already >100m below sea level and filled with salt deposits, and the area is faulted extensively, with many tilted blocks of older material and extensive volcanoes (e.g., Erte Ale) related to the stretching (imagine the effect if you stretched a piece of candy with a brittle crust). So, the headline isn't really news at all.
The new part is the establishment and growth of such an obvious fissure where one did not exist before. The new one is fascinating, but only the latest example of a process that has been ongoing for a long time, and which will probably continue for millions of years more before the ocean eventually invades.
So let me get this straight. There was an earthquake that opened a crack in the earth three months ago and now the scientists involved can tell, after only three months that there will be a sustained widening of this crack by less than one inch per year. After one million years of this exact widening of one inch a year there will be a new ocean created.
Maybe it is hjust me but most real scientific fact going out a million years would likely be based on more than a three month snapshot of data.
On Yahoo, Google, CNN, most if not all of news services will
have geographic stories like this and NOT include a good map of
the area being reported on. If they do the maps are usually
not appropriate, too small, or do not show what is being
discussed.
I wonder what the problem is with this, and yes, I know I can
go look at other maps, but if 50 millions people all go look
for a map it is a lot more time, effort and bandwidth than if
the story's writer just includes an appropriate graphic.
Does this bug anyone else?
If anything, the Parent post is +10 Funny. But moderating it as a TROLL? WOW. KANSAS, Here we come!
The Afar area is a triple junction where upwelling magma is driving 3 continental crust apart - the Arabian plate, West Africa and East Africa. The plates crack in 120 deg pieces because the configuration relieves plate extensional stress with minimal displacement. What typically happens when the basin expands is that one of arms is abandoned, again for thermodynamic reasons. Spreading along a single great circle requires less membrane deformation of the outer crust than spreading along 3. The principle of least action at work. In this case the active arms of the triple junction are the Red Sea and the East Indian ocean which are sites of rapid spreading of oceanic crust. Th East Africa Rift is clearly spread more slowly than the active arms and will fail. The North Sea, Mississipi delta, Camaroon rift, Connecticut Valley, etc are examples of rift valleys and failed arm abandonment during the opening of ocean basins. Sure, volcanism and rifting can still occur in the failed arm. The extensional faults that define these areas assures this. We see this in Afar, and deeper in the African rift. Camaroon is another example. The triple function there opened 120 Mya and it is still active. But is will never form a wide ocean basin. Afar tectonics are still a very interesting phenomen.
an ill wind that blows no good
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.
I wonder if this event will help provide some clue as to what is driving the plate motions.
When I last had lectures in a subject that had to do with plate-tectonics (~1 year ago) there still wasn't any theory that could "give" enough force to create the plate motions that are observed today and should have happened in the past (at least to the knowledge of my professor).
For example India should have stopped it's northwards motion long ago but it is still not moving it's way northwards into Eurasia.
Apart from the immediate implications of the fissure, is there any point in scientists wasting taxpayer money speculating on what the Earth will look like in a million years?
I mean, the Singularity is just a few decades away.
One man's Troll is the other man's Funny and is the third man's Truth.
You can't handle the truth.
I left my garden hose turned on -- the knob broke and I cannot turn it off. My lawn is growing squishier at an unknown rate but the squishiness is definitely increasing. In millions of years it may be enough to form the start of an ocean. During my lifetime I think I can get away with rubber boots, but future generations will need hip waders.
After seeing others get grants, I think I want to go back to university and get a Ph.D. in sociology. I'll do my Ph.D. on the effects of having a million dollar trust fund and driving a ferrari. Now I just need to fill out that application for the grant.
Within the past couple of years the rate of acceptance for NSF proposals has dipped to as low as 2-3%. Recently, I heard that their new goal is to increase their acceptance rate to a whopping 5%. Also, do not totally buy into the belief that peer-review leads to pure merit-based grant awards; there is still a whopping "who you know" factor.
Good luck in your new career!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
of the day is "whopping", as in: "That is a whopping nice rift you got there".
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=0 201-113&volpage=var
Speaking as an amateur geologist, I think I can safely use the geophysical jargon and say, "MAN that is FREAKY!"
Dereje said that the split is the beginning of a long process, which will eventually lead to Ethiopia's eastern part tearing off from the rest of Africa, a sea forming in the gap. The Afar desert is being torn off the continent by about 0.8 inches each year.
0 201-14=&VErupt=N&VSources=Y&VRep=N&VWeekly=N&volpa ge=photos&photo=111075
0 201-14=&volpage=photo
The ocean will take a long time to form I would guess. Maybe they could stock it well with natural/regional fish and plant species and replenish a source of food?
I am not sure if this is the same Boina, but it is an interesting picture of an active Ethiopian volcano nonetheless.
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volcano.cfm?vnum=
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
So when this basin eventually floods, likely killing a large number of people in the process, will it all be George Bush's fault?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
the Black Sea?
If you can read this sig, you're too close.
Yes, Lex Luthor! Look for the secret map with Costa Del Lex, Luthorville, Marina del Lex, Otisburg, etc ...
Does that mean it'll contain NEWater?
And you thought Duke Nukem Forever was vaporware. When will Slashdot stop announcing news before anything real has come of it?
Is it really necessary to post that more than once, or are you just attempting to get better karma?
No existe.
it's like we are facing lately "strong" happenings about earth, all this earth quacks, the tsunami and hurricane, universe is showing it's endless powers, which makes us human so fragile and not knowing in front of this immense powers.
oh my god, its the birth of a mega volcano, not ocean!!! lava! not water!!!
There's a new TV series out this season, called "Surface", that describes what's going on in Ethiopia. Eventually the big green creatures will make themselves known and it will all become obvious.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is old news and not a recent development. The land there has been splitting apart for millions of years.
I predict that the other comment that says the same thing as this will be moderated as +5 Funny!
You can't handle the truth.
I predict that the other c0mment that says the same thing as this will be m0derated as +5 Funny!
You can't handle the truth.
I am a geophysicist by training. I think most experts would agree with me.
an ill wind that blows no good
Yeah, well that's the whole problem. The article makes claims for which people have to make assumptions to determine the validity of it. If there are in fact more inputs, then why aren't they stated? Given the current sorry state of affairs, it's reasonable to assume that they just went with the inputs they provided.
Let me ask some questions of the experts:
Answers? You don't know. If you don't know, then whatever theory you guys have must be accepted by faith/belief in the absence of facts and evidence.
The article stated that although there already examples of this happening, this is the first time they hae seen a "before the split" shot.
Do you have any better hostages?
Who'd have seen that coming?
:)
I remember reading 20 years ago about how the eastern edge of Africa was going to break off from the rest, over the next few dozen million years. So, I guess the answer is: lots of geologists
Would it not be called a Sea, and not an Ocean?
Intelligent Design
How will this affect the climate, assuming it does become an ocean? I know humans probably won't exist by then.
Cons: Instead of other nations trying to invade each other for "Religious Reasons" masking their true greed for each other's oil, it'll be for water instead of oil...
Can you tell me where to pick up some of these mowing sacred cows? I'd like to be prepared for when my lawn starts growing again.
in about a million years.
Later.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
And now back to our movie of the week - Speed 3: Ethiopian Ocean of Doom
- "If this ocean grows any slower then 1 mile a year we're all doomed!"
- "Tell me something I don't know! [to local resident] Get out of the way!"
A new ocean, you say? Jeepers, what's wrong with the oceans you've already got? You've got hot ones and cold ones and windy ones and... sheesh! Back in my day, we only had one ocean, and we all had to share it - 'cept for the Lankowitz kid. Never could be too sure about him. And it was small. Couldn't barely fit a ship into it. But did we complain? Hell no! Just made a canoe out of a hollowed out log and called it the Titanic. And we liked it that way. Didn't have no ice to sink it with, neither. Had to use up our only glacier just to keep the drinks cold in the summer time.
But we never complained. We was proud then, didn't take guff from nobody. Why I remember when the bank came to repossess our desert. Fine desert it was. Some of the best damn Gila monsters ever came outa there. Craftsmanship, that's what we called it. But the bank didn't care. I still remember my pappy standing there with a big timber from our rain forest in his hand, telling that fat-ass banker that he'd come for the wrong desert.
Ocean! Feh! You kids don't even know what an ocean is any more. Buncha perfectly good ones here, and you still need another. Crybabies waste all the cod in one and then it's 'wah wah wah, gimme 'nother ocean!'
Tell yer mother to fetch me 'nother glass of my rheumatism medicine, boy. All this talk 'bout oceans is making me tetchy.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
The term "ocean" when used by an Earth Scientist has a specific meaning which isn't quite the same as the common, everyday usage meaning a large expanse of water.
Geologically, an ocean is a region of the Earth's crust composed of basaltic rocks (of MORB composition) which is generated at a spreading ridge. Because the thickness of this type of crust is pretty uniformly 15Km thick, it's somewhat lower than sea level, hence the expanse of water. This is very different from continental crust which is granitic in composition, far less dense and usualy greater than 30Km thick.
You can get ocean-like spreading ridges elsewhere, one type of these being certain back-arc basins. Although they are look very similar, because of the different composition of the basalt, they are not considered to be oceans.
Now, the term "lake" is generally used to describe a body of fresh water which is laying on a continent. A sea (which isn't really a scientific term at all) is generally ocean water washing over a continental basin which is often surrounded by large islands or other land masses.
The term "land" is not really that scientific a term either, merely meaning the common term for the part of the Earth's surface not covered with water.
I hope this has helped to clarify this for you. The (over) simplification of scientific subject by journalists is a constant bain for scientists in all fields of study.
Agrajag: "Oh no, not again!"
When the San Andreas Fault failed to fulfill the hope of all coastal Californians that everything East of it would collapse into the Atlantic ocean, leaving them with one big Baha all the way from Vancouver to Tijuana?
If I did you wouldn't know the difference, apparently. This is ok reference on the East Africa Rift. And this talks about abandoned arms. This talks about membrane stresses and fault angles. I could go on. Just google on "triple junction", "failed arm", "rift system", etc. What I said really is geology 101. You simply can't spread along 3 axes. Afar may flood with sea water, but it will never be an ocean basin as the original article suggests.
an ill wind that blows no good
...or will we end up with the "Water Water Everywhere But Not A Drop To Drink?" :^)
It would be "A bridge gone to-afar"...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Good question! I was being serious, in a snarky way. Changing sea levels and coatlines *do not* mean new oceans. I assume that when the Netherlands floods due to global warming (it's coming sooner or later), we'll call that an ocean too?
Slashdot: 24 hours behind every other site or your money back!
well.. i've learned about this in 5th grade(7 years ago) at geography.. there's nothing new about it.
No data to substatiate the million year claim was presented, not even the secondary category of anecdotal evidence. My anecdote was presented as an abstraction of the much larger problem, not as the clinching evidence to prove my point. I've seen the same behavior with other medical staff, from staff at stores, textbook writers...
It's part of a much wider epidemic of current society in general.
Didn't you mean "an ad homid" attack? 8-). Start with a joke, when delivering the bitter truth, I say...
Actually, "ad hominim" is Latin for "to the man"; it refers to an attack on the character of the person presenting an argument in an attempt to discredit the argument by tarring it with the same brush.
I think the logical fallacy you were looking for is actually "a strawman argument", which creates an absurd position in order to be able to disprove it.
In this particular case, though, he's not proving the parent's point, since his statement is a pretty fair and balanced take on what's normally presented as main-stream creationism.
You can put as much lipstick on the idea as you want, and it's still going to fail the test of Occam's razor, which states that the simplest explanation fitting all the observed facts is considered to be the correct one, barring additional observed evidence to the contrary.
This principle is why scientists call "theory" what the layman would consider to be "scientific fact": to leave open the possibility of future observed evidence invalidating the theory. And yes, this includes the "theory of gravity".
-- Terry
I don't feel like spelilng out what I mean by the ad hominem attack, sufficed to say that I still mean it even despite the gracious clarification you've given me.
The point is that if the pope said it's an allegory, don't you think there's a bit more of a spectrum than black and white? And to further the point, don't you think it looks peculiarly zealotist hearing feverish rhethoric about how the other camp is CRAP coming from a scientist?!
I'm just saying calm down or else you end up sounding like the people you are accusing.