A study has shown that over millions of years, the East African Rift Valley will split the African plate into two. The continent will be divided into the Somali and Nubian plates creating a new ocean between them. East Africa will be chipped off the continent.
New ocean may arise as Africa continues to split into two parts, say scientists
WHAT?
A study has shown that over millions of years, the East African Rift Valley will split the African plate into two. The continent will be divided into the Somali and Nubian plates creating a new ocean between them.
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Landlocked countries, such as Uganda and Zambia, could potentially have their own coastlines in millions of years.
The formation of the East African Rift, a 35-mile-long crack in Ethiopia's deserts in 2005, marked the beginning of the creation of a new sea. Seismic data was presented in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters, demonstrating that the formation of the rift was driven by tectonic processes similar to those occurring at the bottom of the ocean. The crack was identified as being at the border of three tectonic plates that have already been distancing themselves for some time: African Nubian, African Somali, and Arabian.
