[Darkwolf377]

Please don't post the results of Ted Kennedy's recent physical on FR.

[Esther Ruth]

"..the 37-mile long fissure since it split open in September in the Afar desert..."

"The fissure, now 13 feet wide, formed in just three weeks after a Sept. 14 earthquake in a barren region called Boina, some 621 miles north east of the capital, Addis Ababa, said Dereje."

[Bigg Red]

Interesting. The Great Rift Valley and now this. Ancient Africa is finally separating.

[Jeff Chandler]

it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean

I can't wait!

[Dog Gone]

That's pretty cool. The island of E. Ethiopia. Of course, I'll have to wait a million years to make reservations, but by then it might be a nice place.

[joshhiggins]

estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean...

The Afar desert is being torn off the continent by about 0.8 inches each year.

Let's see, 0.8 inches a year times a million years equals an 800,000 inch wide ocean. Sounds pretty impressive.

[Auntie Dem]

"...estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean..."

Not if we get "The Big One" before then. Could happen "overnight".

[ml/nj]

Fissure Could Become New Ocean

but it's not likely.

ML/NJ

[aculeus]

Surfs Up!

[Mobties]

I wonder how Halliburton finally moved its huge earthquake machine to Africa.

[mrsmith]

"water will migrate from the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. "

Unless it extends to the Nile's headwaters, then fresh, muddy water will flow down and finish filling in the Red Sea from the other end. Boy that's one patient and determined river.

http://activetectonics.la.asu.edu/mledi/

[adorno]

Now, wouldn't a new ocean cause the earth's weather patterns to change?

Where are the global-warming or global-cooling alarmists when you need them? Isn't it time that they started getting the UN and all countries together to try to do somethng about this new ocean? Maybe the world can get together and start filling in the new fault with dirt; and continue doing it for a million years.

This world and it's weather and it's volcanoes and it's earthquakes are too unpredictable and somebody needs to do something about it.

What about it, you greenies?

[kalee]

...the U.S. have been observing the 37-mile long fissure since it split open in September in the Afar desert and estimate it will take a million years to fully form into an ocean...The scientists plan to set up an observatory to watch the split and see how it develops.

I wonder who will pay for this observatory? Trying to imagine funding multiplied by a million years boggles the mind.

[StoneGiant]

Good news.

Now, when the oceans rise from the melting icecaps spawned by Global Warming the water will have someplace to go.

[SunkenCiv]

[CougarGA7]

Guess I'll have to look at this from Afar.