Recently, researchers discovered the beginning of the formation of a new ocean, caused when the Africa starts to split in two. These two pieces of land make up the second largest and second most populous continent in the world.
The separation opens the way for a new ocean to cross the divide, separating the 54 countries that make up the continent. Understand!
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Formation of new ocean
According to the American specialized magazine Geophysical Research Letters, you geologists managed to confirm that a new ocean is being created as the African continent is split in half.
With this happening, countries like Zambia and Uganda, nations that would otherwise have no access to the sea, may one day have coastlines of their own if the land continues to separate.
The formation of a new ocean is a very slow geological process and takes place over millions of years. However, scientists have pinpointed the exact spot where the continent first split open.
So, as plate separation continues, new oceanic crust pulls away from the point where magma is rising and moving toward the edges of tectonic plates. As the oceanic crust pulls away, a new ocean basin forms.
The crack is positioned at the edges of three tectonic plates, which have been gradually moving away from each other for some time. Geologists have noted that this complex tectonic process will make room for an entirely new giant body of water millions of years from now.
The African and Arabian tectonic plates have been gradually moving apart for about 30 million years. This movement is the same one that also divided the Red Sea.
The formation of a new ocean is an example of a geological process that occurs on time scales much larger than human scale, but which could have a major impact on the shape of the Earth's surface over millions of years.
"This is the only place on Earth where you can study how a continental rift becomes an oceanic rift," Christopher Moore, a PhD student at the University of Leeds, explained to NBC News.
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