Slashdot Mirror
Birth of a New African Ocean
Khemisty writes "Formation of an ocean is a rare event, one no scientist has ever witnessed. Yet this geophysical nativity is unfolding today in one of the hottest and most inhospitable corners of the globe. Africa is splitting apart at the seams. From the southern tip of the Red Sea southward through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, the continent is coming unstitched along a zone called the East African Rift." This stretching of the earth's crust has been going on for 20 million years, and within another 10 million the Red Sea will have broken through to create a new sea.
It's in this part of eastern Africa, adjacent to the junction of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and is known as the Afar Depression. All this black stuff is Erte Ale, a volcano that is almost continuously erupting. You can see the fresh black lava flows that historically oozed down the sides, and if you zoom in, you can see the red glow of the lava lake. The salt pan areas mentioned in the article are to the north (Danakil Depression), and are well below sea level (the Wikipedia page on the former settlement of Dallol notes that Dallol is 50m above sea level, but that's the settlement site, not the lake/salt pan, which is lower). There are vast areas of stretched and faulted crust to the southeast (the cliffs are the fault scarps), and Lake Assal, another salt lake 153 metres below sea level.
This area is more impressive if you fly over it in Google Earth rather than Google Maps. Practically every cone-shaped peak you see in this area is a volcano that has been recently or not so recently active, and to the south you can clearly see the flanks of the East African Rift and the series of lakes that occupy the rift valley as far south as Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, interspersed with volcanoes all along the way. This is an awesome part of the world for geology.
Some Christians.
From the article you just linked:
""U.S. Religious Landscape Survey" that was issued in June, 21% of self-proclaimed atheists believe in either a personal God or an impersonal force. Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven."
This alone shows that the study is screwed up. From my dictionary "Atheist - One who disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods." Yet the study says 21% of atheists believe in God. That study is total bullshit.
Furthermore, Baylor University is a Baptist liberal arts school showing its bias from the start. So speaking in tongues isn't occult neither are magical men in the sky. Really by definition ALL christians believe in ghosts. Ever heard of the holy spirit? Go to their site they had the actually questions they used for the study. It is such a dishonest study its gross. Demons, satan, talking to god, heaven and hell aren't considered to be faults in logic while believing in traditional medicine is. Come on now... Of course atheists are more likely to have ouija boards than staunch christians, it is 'a tool of the devil' they could not have one in their home. And i doubt most people take it seriously they are just toys not magic. They tagged 'having read a book about nostradamus' as belief in the occult. Of course atheists will have a higher number, we READ more.