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Birth of a New African Ocean

Khemisty writes "Formation of an ocean is a rare event, one no scientist has ever witnessed. Yet this geophysical nativity is unfolding today in one of the hottest and most inhospitable corners of the globe. Africa is splitting apart at the seams. From the southern tip of the Red Sea southward through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique, the continent is coming unstitched along a zone called the East African Rift." This stretching of the earth's crust has been going on for 20 million years, and within another 10 million the Red Sea will have broken through to create a new sea.<p><a href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/05/1824237&from=rss"><img src="http://slashdot.org/slashdot-it.pl?from=rss&op=image&style=h0&sid=08/10/05/1824237"></a></p><p><a href="http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/05/1824237&from=rss">Read more of this story</a> at Slashdot.</p> <p><a href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/IOwWfAO7ihttrwB7Snw3oy8VP7A/a"><img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/IOwWfAO7ihttrwB7Snw3oy8VP7A/i" border="0" ismap="true"></img></a></p><img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~4/cGvaTTWkJbY" height="1" width="1"/>