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
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!
All that water from melting glaciers has to go somewhere.
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 ----
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
Obviously what we need, is lot's of skyscrapers around the fold.
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.
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.
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!
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!"
Yes, Lex Luthor! Look for the secret map with Costa Del Lex, Luthorville, Marina del Lex, Otisburg, etc ...
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.
How will this affect the climate, assuming it does become an ocean? I know humans probably won't exist by then.
in about a million years.
Later.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
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!"
If you'd like to propose a more tangible and accurate estimate to determine when the East Africa rift valley will become an "ocean", please do so. The scientific community is waiting.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
i think you're bringing in emotions from a completely separate matter (between you and your physician) into this argument. while it's understandable that your personal experiences shape your perception and attitudes, you really shouldn't let your experiences with a single phsyician dictate your perception of the entire scientific/medical establishment. it just sems like you're looking too hard to come up with wide-sweeping criticisms of the scientific community in order to create more fodder to justify to yourself your resentment towards conventional science and medicine, when all you really need to do is take a more objective look at the situation and separate your personal politics from unrelated matters.
maybe your psychologist is a douchebag--god knows i've had my share of bad experiences with the mental health community--but your attempt at construing one mainstream publication's report on this discovery to reinforce your personal grudge against your physician can only turn up specious arguments that are unconvincing to others.