The continent of Africa is literally ripping apart as a result of new oceans forming, and it’s one of the most mind blowing stories from the natural world we can remember.
Photographs of the dramatic split taken by Julie Rowland of the University of Auckland, show that two huge sections of land in Kenya have been moving apart as a new ocean begins to emerge.
The developments could mean that otherwise landlocked countries on the continent could have a coastline at some point.
In fact, Zambia and Uganda could soon neighbour an ocean – only, it might take a few million years. Eventually, it’s also thought that the gap will grow to such an extent that East Africa will form a separate continent.
The gap that’s emerged as the continent shifts is known as the East African Rift, and it’s come about as the African, Arabian and Somali tectonic plates have moved away from each other at a rate of around one inch a year.
The phenomenon has been fascinating scientists since it was first discovered in 2005 in Ethiopia and it runs 35 miles in length.
Research into the feature in the peer-reviewed journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Ken Macdonald is a marine geophysicist and professor emeritus based at the University of California. MacDonald said: "With GPS measurements, you can measure rates of movement down to a few millimetres per year. As we get more and more measurements from GPS, we can get a much greater sense of what’s going on.
"The Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will flood in over the Afar region and into the East African Rift Valley and become a new ocean, and that part of East Africa will become its own separate small continent.”
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