Scientists are adamant that a sixth ocean will emerge, but not just yet.
It is one of the hottest and driest places in the world (with temperatures reaching over 50°C in the middle of the day), yet scientists say an ocean is forming in Ethiopia. The sixth ocean is taking shape in the Afar region in the east of the country, according to an article in NBC News. This new formation is not accidental but is caused by the movement of tectonic plates. The movement of these plates, pushing in opposite directions, forms a chasm.
The activity of the tectonic plates has been studied for many years, but it is thanks to satellite images that geologists have been able to measure the evolution. Each year, the chasm (formed in 2005) is growing by two centimetres. Visible to the naked eye, it now measures more than 56 km. “With GPS measurements, you can measure the speed of travel up to a few millimetres per year,” the scientists explain. “As we get more and more measurements from GPS, we can get a much better idea of what’s going on. »
A new ocean and a new continent
“It’s the only place on Earth” where you can study how continental crust becomes oceanic crust, says one scientist. In concrete terms, continental crust is the backbone of continents and shallow sea floor areas (near the coasts), unlike the oceanic crust that forms the bottom of the oceans.
This geological evolution, caused by plate movement, is not new to this part of the world. The separation between the African and Arabian plates have already created, for example, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition to this separation, two plates generally associated with the African Plate are also separating (the Somali and Nubian plates). By force, this separation creates a fault that will one day become an ocean.
“The Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will flood the Afar region, and this part of East Africa will become its own separate little continent,” the scientists told NBC News. But don’t throw away your planisphere: our planet is not going to change overnight. It will take time for a sixth ocean to form, with the size we know it to be. According to scientists, it will take between 5 and 10 million years.
Source: Paris Match
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