Geologists have confirmed that Africa is slowly splitting into two parts due to the emergence of a new ocean. In 2005, a fault more than 55 kilometers long appeared in the Ethiopian deserts, now an international team of scientists has confirmed that this marked the beginning of the formation of an entirely new sea, Rwandan media reports New Times.

The researchers published their work in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.. They combined seismic data from observations of the fault, which showed that its appearance is due to processes similar to those at the bottom of the ocean..

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The African and Arabian tectonic plates have been colliding and moving apart for 30 million years. A similar process, at a rate of several centimeters per year, once led to the formation of the Red Sea..

The news that a new ocean is forming in Africa may be shocking. But scientists reassure that it takes several million years to appear..

So, Edwin Dindi from the department of geology of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Nairobi considers the formation of the ocean along the eastern arm of the African Rift Valley possible..

“The eastern arm of the Rift Valley is quite active, as evidenced by the many tremors occurring around it.. However, for this to happen, it will take a long time, perhaps millions of years,” he said..

According to geologists, the Earth appeared 4.5 billion years ago. About 3.2 billion years ago, the continental crust formed, and with it the supercontinent.

Since then, tectonic plates have been in constant motion.. Some of them move relative to each other along fault lines, some fall under each other, and some collide and then move apart.. It was this movement that led to the formation of the various continents as we know them today..

According to Dindi, movement within the continental crust has created the East African Rift Valley, which remains active and continues to expand, which could lead to a new ocean..

“But this will not happen immediately, it will happen in millions of years. Remember that it took more than 30 million years for the thickness around the rift valley to decrease from 40 kilometers to 35 kilometers, which means that it will take many more years to shed another five kilometers, ”the scientist noted..

Dindi added that not all rift valleys eventually form to what they are today, they tend to collapse.. Today, the East African Rift Valley, or as it is also called the Afro-Arabian, is one of the most extensive rifts on the surface of our planet.. The length of the system is almost 6.5 thousand kilometers, and its average width is from 48 to 64 kilometers..