XPost: soc.culture.african, alt.niggers, sac.politics   
   XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   From: nigger-lovers@disney.com   
      
   In one of the hottest places on Earth, along an arid stretch of   
   East Africa’s Afar region, it’s possible to stand on the exact   
   spot where, deep underground, the continent is splitting apart.   
      
   This desolate expanse sits atop the juncture of three tectonic   
   plates that are very slowly peeling away from each other, a   
   complex geological process that scientists say will eventually   
   cleave Africa in two and create a new ocean basin millions of   
   years from now. For now, the most obvious evidence is a 35-mile-   
   long crack in the Ethiopian desert.   
      
   The African continent’s tectonic fate has been studied for   
   several decades, but new satellite measurements are helping   
   scientists better understand the transition and are offering   
   valuable tools to study the gradual birth of a new ocean in one   
   of the most geologically unique spots on the planet.   
      
   “This is the only place on Earth where you can study how   
   continental rift becomes an oceanic rift,” said Christopher   
   Moore, a Ph.D. doctoral student at the University of Leeds in   
   the United Kingdom, who has been using satellite radar to   
   monitor volcanic activity in East Africa that is associated with   
   the continent’s breakup.   
      
   It’s thought that Africa’s new ocean will take at least 5   
   million to 10 million years to form, but the Afar region’s   
   fortuitous location at the boundaries of the Nubian, Somali and   
   Arabian plates makes it a unique laboratory to study elaborate   
   tectonic processes.   
      
   Earth’s crust is made up of a dozen large tectonic plates, which   
   are irregularly shaped, rocky slabs that constantly mash   
   against, climb over, slide under or stretch apart from one   
   another.   
      
   For the past 30 million years, the Arabian plate has been moving   
   away from Africa, a process that created the Red Sea and the   
   Gulf of Aden between the two connected landmasses. But the   
   Somali plate in eastern Africa is also stretching away from the   
   Nubian plate, peeling apart along the East African Rift Valley,   
   which extends through Ethiopia and Kenya.   
      
   But there are still some big unknowns, including what is causing   
   the continent to rift apart. Some think that a massive plume of   
   superheated rocks rising from the mantle beneath East Africa   
   could be driving the region’s continental rift.   
      
   In recent years, GPS instruments have revolutionized this field   
   of research, allowing scientists to make precise measurements of   
   how the ground moves over time, said Ken Macdonald, a marine   
   geophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of   
   California, Santa Barbara.   
      
   “With GPS measurements, you can measure rates of movement down   
   to a few millimeters per year,” Macdonald said. “As we get more   
   and more measurements from GPS, we can get a much greater sense   
   of what’s going on.”   
      
   Detailed satellite observations combined with additional field   
   research could also help scientists piece together what is   
   happening underground in the Afar region. But if the area is a   
   living laboratory to study continental rift, the environment   
   doesn’t make it easy.   
      
   “It has been called Dante’s inferno,” said Cynthia Ebinger, a   
   geophysicist at Tulane University in New Orleans, who has   
   conducted numerous field research campaigns in the Afar region.   
   “The hottest inhabited town on the Earth’s surface is in the   
   Afar. Daytime temperatures often go to 130 degrees Fahrenheit   
   and they cool off to a balmy 95 degrees at night.”   
      
   Some of Ebinger’s research in the field focused on a giant, 35-   
   mile crack that opened up in the Ethiopian desert in 2005. The   
   violent split was equivalent to several hundred years of   
   tectonic plate movement in just a few days, she said.   
      
   Since then, Ebinger’s work has zeroed in on what triggers these   
   extreme events. Her research suggests that the rifting process   
   isn’t always smooth and steady but can sometimes be defined by   
   intense jerks along the way.   
      
   “We’re trying to understand the straw that breaks the camel’s   
   back,” she said.   
      
   Ebinger thinks built-up pressure from rising magma could be   
   triggering the explosive events seen in the Afar region. She   
   likened the scenario to overfilling a balloon and creating so   
   much tension on the outer surface that it doesn’t take much to   
   relieve the pressure and cause the balloon to pop.   
      
   Over time, these rifting events will reshape the African   
   continent.   
      
   Each plate boundary in the Afar region is spreading at different   
   speeds, but the combined forces of these separating plates is   
   creating what’s known as a mid-ocean ridge system, where   
   eventually a new ocean will form.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)