Seismic Fissure in Ethiopia Evidence of Ocean in Making, Study Says

A 35-mile seismic crack that formed over a few days in 2005 in the Ethiopian desert is evidence of a new ocean in the making, scientists report in a new study. The abrupt formation of the rift, which is 20 feet wide in places, is similar to the shifting that occurs on the ocean’s floor, according to the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Using seismic data from the September, 2005 eruption of Dabbahu, a volcano located in Ethiopia’s remote Afar Region, scientists were able to reconstruct how, over just a few days, the fissure stretched 35 miles. The evidence, they say, suggests that volcanic boundaries near the edges of tectonic plates can experience massive, sudden splits and do not necessarily separate slowly during a series of smaller events. “We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift,” said study co-author Cindy Ebinger, of the University of Rochester, “but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this.” The African and Arabian plates, which meet in this remote area of Ethiopia, have been separating by less than an inch per year for 30 million years. Scientists believe the Red Sea will eventually pour into the new sea — perhaps in about a million years.