Clarion Content

And no, we don't mean that figuratively, Africa is literally splitting in two according to geologists from the University of Rochester. A thirty-five mile long gash opened up in Ethiopia as recently as 2007, it is twenty feet wide in places. Scientists say the process mimics rifts that open on the bottom of the ocean floor. Fox News reported, "the rift tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began 'unzipping' the rift in both directions.

The African and Arabian tectonic plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia. They have been spreading apart in a process that moves at a speed of less than 1 inch per year, over the past 30 million years. This rifting process formed the 186-mile Afar depression and the Red Sea.

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Labels: ecology, science