Ghostly salt deposits near Afdera volcano testify to ancient inundations in Ethiopia's Afar region. In the past 200,000 years the Red Sea flooded Afar's lowlands at least three times; the salt stayed behind as the seawater evaporated. One day the ersatz seascape will likely become the real thing.
Image: Eitan Haddock
In Brief
- Africa is splitting apart at the seams—literally. From the southern tip of the Red Sea southward through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique, the continent is coming unstitched along a zone called the East African Rift.
- Like a shirtsleeve tearing under a bulging bicep, the earth’s crust rips apart as molten rock from deep down pushes up on the solid surface and stretches it thin—sometimes to its breaking point. Each new slit widens as lava fills the gap from below.
- This spectacular geologic unraveling, already under way for millions of years, will be complete when saltwater from the Red Sea floods the massive gash. Ten million years from now the entire rift may be submerged.
More In This Article
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Photo Album
Slide Show: The Afar Depression Photo Essay
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Photo Album
Slide Show: How Ocean's Are Born
In northeastern Ethiopia one of the earth’s driest deserts is making way for a new ocean. This region of the African continent, known to geologists as the Afar Depression, is pulling apart in two directions—a process that is gradually thinning the earth’s rocky outer skin. The continental crust under Afar is a mere 20 kilometers from top to bottom, less than half its original thickness, and parts of the area are over 100 meters below sea level. Low hills to the east are all that stops the Red Sea from encroaching.
Such proximity to the planet’s scorching interior has transformed the region into a dynamic landscape of earthquakes, volcanoes and hydrothermal fields—making Afar a veritable paradise for people, like me, eager to understand those processes. Yet few outsiders, scientists included, have ever set foot in Afar. Daytime temperatures soar to 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer, and no rain falls for much of the year. But I knew I faced more than treacherous geology and climate. Nasty geopolitical struggles—namely, war between Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea—combine with those natural hardships to make Afar utterly inhospitable.
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24 Comments
Add CommentAfter me, these pictures compete in beauty with the best images taken by Hubble from Cosmos. What a pity that this beauty is constantly threatened by poverty and war!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for any beauty , if it is stained by politics and unpeace, it will be deteriorated and never displayed the orginal features any more.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat has to be the dumbest first sentence ever published in SciAm.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow can the waters of the Red Sea rise and fall 80,000 years ago when the SUV was not even invented? How many times has Al Gore saved us from rising ocean levels?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"How can the waters of the Red Sea rise and fall 80,000 years ago when the SUV was not even invented? "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCould you point out to me who is saying the Earth's climate does not fluctuate over geological time? Geophysicist are very well aware that climate changes. They even have a mechanisms to explain these changes in climate. Why don't you go and read about Milankovitch cycles e.g.
DSSSSSSSSS
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat an incredible exploration!!! Beautiful photos of a place I will likely not visit in my lifetime. Interesting that the primitive people of the region have no knowledge of the energy resource available to them - non-carbon geothermal energy that is almost unlimited.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is vivid that lack of knowledge and laziness to read would lead one to write, qoute, "the primitive people of the region have no knowledge ..." in this thread.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe 've an obligation to correct such erroneous streotypes.
Do you know this is the place of human-origin? Where ancient civilization ignited? where modern civilization started?where you get ancient Ethiopic scripts of profound maths, astronomy and ethic and other philosphy thoughts written thousands years ago? Do you know this the place where modern architecture was invented? Do you know these people never exercised paganism?Do you know these "primitive people" are the first coloured people to defeat colonialism and fashism?
No You don't. As your only source of information is CNN or the intentional hate bubbling in your head?
Read brother\sister! Reading is a good stuff!
The unfortunate manmade-natural events doesn't make people primitive!
Thanks Eitan Haddok for all yor hard work!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso Thanks for adding this great article to the pool of human knowledge!
Politely yours,
Samuel
well said sami. Some people do not know any thing about the world. They only think they are the only people who are civilized,yet they are the dumpest people in the world. They do not know even the name of the state bordering them. The problem with them is they do not read. Had they done so they would know that source of civilization was the red sea area, where the great Lucy is from. I am sure they need some explanetion who this Lucy is. They won't believe that the first written scripts where from Axum.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow, Etheopia rocks dude. Beautiful place and people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJiff
www.privacy.es.tc
wel said Mr. Samuel, and I have nothing to add to it. I wish this ignorant could have thought of his vulgar words before pointing them to the people and nation that has contributed a lot than most of the nations in every respect, than his idols. I wonder how he managed to get into this website where little minded cretures like him don't bother much. Lastly, I would like to pass my appreciation to Eitan Haddok for his contributions and dedication to have taken all the hardships and introduce his observations to the world of intelects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisG. Abesha
"... the primitive people of that region..." What a refreshingly racist point of view.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this= why did sci am reject my comment
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes ,SamEyassu and Abatireg, appreciated . Reading makes a complete man. but grade 1 pseudo scientists like me need lots of material to read. but where is the time? was there nothing before Axum? As for climate changes Was the NPole not at Colombo and the equator round iceland once, if not due to wobble, then to a catastrophe, or shifts in the core centers? 2008 even BigBang is seeing modifications??? so what is knowlej? what dogma? ParallelUniverses say that right now there are other people jus like me typing this letter to you. Indian Vedas say this earth is the 14th one with 13 like me gone before ?All this is Illusion?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat strange and wierd place do you live? These people are barely out of the stone age, still have a magicical view of how the world works. My advice to you is to buy your plane ticket and take a lesson plan with you let us know how it goes. Just like everything else over time it all changes and you can't do anything about it. Naive innocence, arn't you lucky.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWould the red deposits between the salts be Halobacterium halobium residues? It is an extreme halophile. Near where I live in Oregon USA there are great lava deposits layered with organic residues which also make a red layer between the lava layers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI appreciate Mr. Eyassu's comments. Xenophobia is common to most human cultures, as is the ignorance which fuels such things, so sad to say. I always hope to keep the discussion scientific, but often this is most difficult. Being rational requires work. People are lazy.
Well, if the area is already sinking and will become an ocean, why not build a canal to let the water in now? This might slow down the wars in the region. We could auction off the right to name the new ocean on ebay with the proceeds to be used to improve the living conditions of the peoples around the infant ocean. Instead of giving the people a fish to feed them for a day, we could teach them to fish the new ocean to feed them for life. There would probably be a huge influx of tourists with money to spend who want to see the new ocean form. The locals could build a tourist trap (resort) to separate the tourists from their money. This would fuel the local economy and pay for schools, agricultural developement, and infrastructure for further developement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe ocean is a wonderful place and we should keep it pure and clean no matter what.also check out my website to enjoy interesting sites from around the world.it is updated every 2-weeks.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://ran-the-monkey.livejournal.com/3805.html
also click on previous entry button on the top left page.
"Formation of an ocean is a rare event, one few scientists have ever witnessed."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPrecisely who are these scientists who have witnessed the formation of an ocean? Even if there are only a "few," the existence of any such long-lived superbeings would seem like quite a journalistic scoop. I think Scientific American should come clean with us.
I enjoyed these amazing photos and article very much!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(I subscribe to Scientific American's printed issue).
Thanks. Also I can tell you that the word 'afar' means
land, dirt, dust - in Hebrew.
Sincerely,
Israeli subscriber
if it is true, we are lucky!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIF IT IS TRUE WE ARE LUCKY !
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSciAm's rhetorical style is increasingly popular in tone, albeit civilized and entertaining. One would expect this rhetoric in an esteemed popular magzine like National Geographic. In a scientific journal, however, I am looking for something more than the obvious, more than great photography, certainly more than "personal experiences" of the reporter. I am looking for detailed scientific explanations of phenonmena and that I found lacking in this otherwise very enjoyable photo essay.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this