"..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."
Scientists -- just maybe -- will be surprised to learn that these needs do not need a million years to accomplish.