Geologists have confirmed that the continent of Africa is slowly splitting apart. The lands are making way for a whole new ocean to run through the space being left by the continent. According to experts, Zambia and Uganda could one day have their own coastlines should the continent fully split.
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The crack in the continent, known as the East African Rift, was pinpointed to be on the borders of three tectonic plates, which are the African, Arabian, and Somali plates. Millions of years from now, the consistent movement of these plates would lead to a new body of water. The rift currently runs 35 miles long and appeared initially back in 2005.
Geologists believe that the Arabian plate has been slowly moving away from the African continent for the past 30 million years. Ken Macdonald, a marine geophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of California explained that they were able to measure the rates of movement to a few millimeters per year thanks to GPS measurements. “The Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will flood in over the Afar region and into the East African Rift Valley and become a new ocean, and that part of East Africa will become its own separate small continent,” he confirmed.
Image credit: Africa Infohub / YouTube
Source: neatorama