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Africa Is Breaking Apart Faster Than We Thought, Forming a New Ocean
Confirmed
In Short: Geologists report that Africa is breaking apart faster than previously thought, with a new ocean forming in the East African Rift System.
The data, reported July 29 in Nature, show a gradual shift from West and Central Africa toward the eastern and southern regions, consistent with global warming.
Increased temperatures may mean a more hostile environment for disease-carrying mosquitoes in the West and Central regions and a more favorable climate in the eastern and southern regions, says Romaric Odoulami, a climatologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
This will become a new seafloor, as water begins to rush in from the Indian Ocean, and the East African Rift System is a clear example of the process.
An active rift has reached a 'critical threshold' and will soon break apart, forming a new ocean, according to reports.
What's confirmed
- The data, reported July 29 in Nature, show a gradual shift from West and Central Africa toward the eastern and southern regions, consistent with global warming.
- Increased temperatures may mean a more hostile environment for disease-carrying mosquitoes in the West and Central regions and a more favorable climate in the eastern and southern regions, says Romaric Odoulami, a climatologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
- This will become a new seafloor, as water begins to rush in from the Indian Ocean, and the East African Rift System is a clear example of the process.
- An active rift has reached a 'critical threshold' and will soon break apart, forming a new ocean, according to reports.
What's still developing
- But a deep dive into blood sample datasets from sub-Saharan Africa spanning over a century reveals that this story is changing.
- Malaria has historically been most prevalent in West and Central Africa, where temperatures are suitable for both the parasite that causes the disease (the genus Plasmodium ) and the mosquitoes that carry it (the genus Anopheles ).
- High-elevation regions of East Africa and coastal southern Africa have been cold enough to fend off significant malaria transmission, centering the disease in hotbeds.
- Geologists have discovered that the African continent will split apart sooner than we thought.
- But the new find suggests the region may not necessarily have been more important to our ancestors than anywhere else in Africa – instead, it may just be that these geologic processes created very favorable conditions for fossilization.
- As the name suggests, this is how a new ocean forms.
- As the rift began necking, sedimentation began accumulating faster, making it perfect for capturing a detailed record of the life that lived there at the time.
- "Eastern Africa has progressed further in the rifting process than previously thought." The most intriguing thing about the find is its implications for our own history.