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01st Feb 2025

Earth could be getting a new ocean and continent a lot sooner than first thought

JOE

The Nubian continent is forming

Earth once just had one continent known as Pangea that slowly broke apart to form the continents we know today.

These continents just like Pangea are not going to stay intact forever and will eventually break apart and now, a scientist has warned that one continent is being torn in two much quicker than expected.

While it’s hard to predict what the Earth’s surface will look like in a million years’ time, geologists have already located one place where a new continent is likely to form.

A 35-mile long fissure discovered in Ethiopia’s desert in 2005 has continued to widen by 6-7mm per year.

It’s linked to a 2000-mile long, 22-million year old rift called the East Africa Rift System, which is thought to have been caused by movements of the Earth’s tectonic plates.

Tectonic plates pull apart, crash together and slide past each other, irritating volcanoes and causing earthquakes.

Eastern Africa is perched on the Somalia plate which has been pulling away from the rest of the continent on the Nubian plate for about 25,00,000 years, research found in 2012.

Once the split becomes large enough for a body of water to form, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and some parts of Ethiopia would form a new continent – called ‘the Nubian continent’ – separated by the world’s sixth ocean.

Ken MacDonald, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told MailOnline: “What might happen is that the waters of the Indian Ocean would come in and flood what is now the East African Rift Valley.

“There’s slippage and faults creating earthquake activity, along with visible signs of active volcanoes.”

Geologists have spent the last few years trying to work out exactly when, where and why the split is happening.

The Geological Society of London said: “Today the EAR remains above sea level however in the future, as extension continues along the rift, the rift valley will sink lower and lower eventually allowing ocean waters to flood into the basin.

“If rifting continues, new basaltic oceanic crust may form along the centre of the rift producing a new narrow ocean basin with its own mid-ocean ridge between the Nubian and Somalian plates.”

Researchers have long suspected that this process – which could end in Madagascar being ripped into two islands – would take tens of millions of years.

However, MacDonald suspects it will happen in one to five million years, adding that in our lifetime we will not see many changes.

We may feel earthquakes and see volcanoes erupt but that the ocean will not intrude in our lifetime.