Africa is splitting apart faster than we thought, forming a new ocean

[C C]

Africa Is Splitting Apart Faster Than We Thought, Forming a New Ocean
https://www.sciencealert.com/africa-is-splitting-apart-faster-than-we-thought-forming-a-new-ocean

INTRO: Geologists have discovered that the African continent will split apart sooner than we thought. An active rift has reached a "critical threshold" and will soon break apart, forming a new ocean. That said, 'soon' is a relative term – it'll still take a few million years more, but that's a blink of an eye on a geological scale.

"We found that rifting in this zone is more advanced, and the crust is thinner, than anyone had recognized," says Christian Rowan, a geoscientist at Columbia University. "Eastern Africa has progressed further in the rifting process than previously thought." (MORE - details)
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[exchemist]

Africa Is Splitting Apart Faster Than We Thought, Forming a New Ocean
https://www.sciencealert.com/africa-is-splitting-apart-faster-than-we-thought-forming-a-new-ocean

INTRO: Geologists have discovered that the African continent will split apart sooner than we thought. An active rift has reached a "critical threshold" and will soon break apart, forming a new ocean. That said, 'soon' is a relative term – it'll still take a few million years more, but that's a blink of an eye on a geological scale.

"We found that rifting in this zone is more advanced, and the crust is thinner, than anyone had recognized," says Christian Rowan, a geoscientist at Columbia University. "Eastern Africa has progressed further in the rifting process than previously thought." (MORE - details)
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Interesting. Though as I read it, the process is furthest advanced not in the Turkana Rift but in the Afar Triangle, where the "oceanisation" process they describe has actually started. I was aware that the Danakil Depression, which is already well below sea level, is a sign of incipient ocean formation - or eventual ingress by the ocean from the Red Sea. So it seems all this is saying is that a part of the Rift Valley further inland and to the southwest is also somewhat further on in the process than had been thought up to now.

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

"...says Christian Rowan, a geoscientist at Columbia University.

"Geoscientist"? So, a geologist?

Interesting read!

 

[exchemist]

"Geoscientist"? So, a geologist?

Interesting read!

I think the term geologist is quite a lot narrower than geoscientist. My understanding is that what is now called Earth Sciences encompasses geophysics, geochemistry, plate tectonics, oceanography and atmospheric physics, as well as what one might call the classical study of rocks that geology is concerned with.

Earth Sciences seems to be fairly recent as an academic discipline. I have the feeling it was defined some time in the 1960s when plate tectonics took off. If it had been more prominent back then I might have chosen it as my degree subject, when I wen to uni in the early 70s.

 

[TheVat]

Also includes biology, in studying how living things, including humans, interact with the Earth. Geoscience is the big interdisciplinary umbrella term for all study of things earth-related. Everything from the core to the outer edge of the atmosphere. It even pulls in some planetary science and astrophysics to the extent that Earth is affected in some way. Yeah, seems like it caught on in the seventies.

. I have the feeling it was defined some time in the 1960s when plate tectonics took off.

If I'm not mistaken, plate tectonics took off around 3-4 billion years ago. (sometimes I just can't help myself)

 

[exchemist]

Also includes biology, in studying how living things, including humans, interact with the Earth. Geoscience is the big interdisciplinary umbrella term for all study of things earth-related. Everything from the core to the outer edge of the atmosphere. It even pulls in some planetary science and astrophysics to the extent that Earth is affected in some way. Yeah, seems like it caught on in the seventies.



If I'm not mistaken, plate tectonics took off around 3-4 billion years ago. (sometimes I just can't help myself)

I suppose to be pedantic I should have said "the theory of" plate tectonics.

The advent of that theory is about the only really major "paradigm shift" (ugh) in science to have taken place in my lifetime. I remember reading as a child the notion that mountains were formed by shrinkage of the planet as it cooled, like the wrinkling of the skin of a drying out apple.