![]() ![]() Macdonald says the process of continental plates spreading apart and filling in with magma is analogous to what happens on the deep seafloor at mid-ocean ridges, which are difficult to study because they lie a few kilometres under water. Other areas in the Afar region are below sea level, however, and could see flooding before that if similar rifting occurs near the coastal volcanoes to the north and east that form a natural levee against the sea. “At some point, if that spreading and rifting continues, then that area will be flooded,” says Ken Macdonald, a marine geophysicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was not involved with the study.Įbinger says this won’t happen any time soon – it would take around 4 million years for the crack to reach the size of the Red Sea. New oceanĮventually it could reach the east coast of Ethiopia and fill up with seawater. “As the plates keep spreading apart, it will end up looking like the Red Sea,” she says. While the Mount Dabbahu rift is still hundreds of kilometres inland, Ebinger says it could continue to widen and lengthen. ![]()
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