[AllenG (OP)]

In 2005, the earth cracked open in Ethiopia. Two volcanic eruptions shook the desert, and a 35-mile-long rift opened in the land, measuring 20 feet wide in some places. Now a new study adds weight to the argument that the opening of this crack marks the first step in the formation of a new sea that may eventually separate East Africa from the rest of the continent. Says lead researcher Atalay Ayele: “The ocean’s formation is happening slowly, likely to take a few million years. It will stretch from the Afar depression (straddling Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti) down to Mozambique” Source ABC News.


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And does that mean there are going to be great lava flows like the Siberian Traps before it submerges?

[JimBob]

This area is known as the East African Rift System. It has been active for million of years. Due to the numerous volcanic flows and ash falls as a result of rifting activity the dating of human evolution can be done with exceedingly great precision.

The rift system from Mozambique to the Red Sea is a double system having two branches - conveniently named the east and west branches. Mount Kilimanjaro is a volcano situated on eastern part of the rift.

The rift is actually part of a much larger rift system that is responsible for the formation of the Red Sea and the Arabian peninsula, the Sinai Peninsula being separated from  Egypt and Arabia as well as the rifting that forms the Jordan River Valley and the Dead Sea

This system has been active for at lease the past 50 million years - the separation of Madagascar from the rest of Africa is the result of an older part of the system that has now shut down.

[AllenG (OP)]

Thanks Jimbob.
So, the fate of Africa is to be sliced into thin strips separated by seas?

[JimBob]

Karnak cannot see the future beyond 2 million years. Wait for another million years before he tell.

I wait for the ages - they answer this one.