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Birth of a New African Ocean

Posted by kdawson on from the interesting-times-interesting-places dept.

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.

8 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Someone will blame this on... by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 0, Troll

    And global warming denialists will claim that the volcanoes in the rift are putting out far more C02 than humans are, so why worry about anything? Drill, baby, drill!

    Young-earth creationists will find Biblical verses that explain how this process has actually only been going on for 6000 years.

    ID'ers will claim that the whole process is irreducibly complex.

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  2. Re:Red Sea tag suggestion: by mR.bRiGhTsId3 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yes, everything is global warming's fault. Why, we should even blame those carbon-booted fiends for when everything is just right and we have nothing to complain about.

  3. Re:I say we dig a canal by sznupi · · Score: 0, Troll

    Better leave it alone and let nature take its few million years; the place is already riddled with conflicts, imagine what

    a) destroying some land
    b) prospects of access to the sea for nearby places

    would do...

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  4. Re:Corners... on a sphere? by davidsyes · · Score: 0, Troll

    Troll my ass, you TWIT! Is it true or not?

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  5. Re:Red Sea tag suggestion: by dogdick · · Score: 1, Troll

    you guys believe in 'facts' from a book written by people that thought the world was flat.

  6. Re:Red Sea tag suggestion: by tehcyder · · Score: 0, Troll

    I'd rather deal with loons who are mistaken over how things were in the past than with loons who are loony over the present and most importantly the future.

    Unfortunately the sort of Christian loons who believe the world is six thousand years old are precisely the ones most likely to welcome and potentially help bring about Armageddon.

    --
    To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  7. Re:Red Sea tag suggestion: by aproposofwhat · · Score: 1, Troll

    People believe because they have to, and they have the right to believe what they want.

    Just as I have the right to tag them as idiots if they believe in Bronze Age myths :P

    --
    One swallow does not a fellatrix make
  8. Re:Red Sea tag suggestion: by jebrew · · Score: 0, Troll
    It was still written by people who advocated human sacrifice (of your own children no less) as well as several other forms of brutal punishment.

    I don't know that stoning is really a good punishment for coveting someone's ass.