The discovery that under Africa is formed a new ocean was made by researchers who detected rhythmic pulses from the earth’s cloak, along a 56km crack that opened in Ethiopia in 2005.

The research team, with the participation of ten scientific institutions and heads of the University of Southampton, found that in the Ethiopian Afar region, melted rocks from the Earth’s mantle emerge and gradually dissolve the continent, resulting in a new ocean.

In fact, scientists believe that A 3,200 -mile -long crack (5,149 km) – extending from Ethiopia to Mozambique – will grow over several million years, creating a new ocean and a vast island.

It is believed that the new African ocean will at least take 5 to 10 million years To form, but the location of the area of ​​Afar on the boundaries of the tectonic plates of Nubia, Somalia and Arabia makes it a unique workshop for the study of complex tectonic processes.

There are still some great unanswered questions, including what is causing the breakdown of the Afternine Epirus. Some believe that a huge cloud of overheated rocks rising from the cloak under East Africa could cause the mainland of the area.

The impressive study

The researchers studied more than 130 specimens of volcanic rocks from all over the area and found that the mantle under Afar is not uniform or static, but these pulses have distinct chemical signatures.

According to the findings, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, a hot cloak jet pulses up rhythmically, like a heart -beating heart. The upward flow of hot material is strongly influenced by the tectonic plates above the mantle.

The Afar area is a rare part, as they converge three tectonic faults: the main rift of Ethiopia, the Red Sea rift and the rift of the Gulf of Aden.

Over millions of years, as tectonic plates are removed in cracks, such as Afar, stretch and thinner until they break down. This rupture marks the birth of a new ocean basin.