Africa is being 'ripped apart' and could split in two much sooner than expected
Africa is being 'ripped apart' and could split in two much sooner than expected
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Africa could be torn apart like paper amidst warnings a chunk of the continent is breaking away. An area of East Africa could be separated from the continent sooner than previously thought, with a 35-mile crack along the East African rift in Afar currently under watch. Experts monitoring the gap say the deepening crack will eventually separate from the rest of the continent as water emerges, effectively reshaping the world map.
It's one of the few spots on Earth where tectonic activity is actively separating parts of the planet's crust. But while initial observation estimated the actual separation could take tens of millions of years, one academic is now claiming the separation could in fact happen much sooner than suspected.
Professor Ken Macdonald from the University of California, Santa Barbara, estimates this could be as soon as one to five million years. Speaking to DailyMail.co.uk, the academic said: "What might happen is that the waters of the Indian Ocean would come in and flood what is now the East African Rift Valley.".
The academic, who specialises in tectonic faults and mid-ocean ridges said, the crack could be deepened as low as the floor of the Atlantic Ocean if waters continue to gush into it. The track winds through Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and half of Ethiopia, which are expected to break away to form a new, separate land mass that scientists have dubbed the "Nubian continent".
