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Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

bbc.com

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Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#21

Post by maxxxxx »

djsumdog wrote: post #17
beamatronic wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do have satellites - I don't know about 10 million years but it seems reasonable to assume that humans will maintain satellites in orbit for imaging purposes as long as we are technologically able.

How long do you think humans will be around? Sure, homosapiens have been here for like 2~3 million years, right? But out modern human civilizations are very young, like ~ 10,000 years at the most (depending on your metrics and what is a civilization). To quote Blade Running, "the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long." We could be here another million years, or we could be here only 50,000 more years ..…

I bet in 10 million years we'll be totally gone or somewhere in a computer. I doubt we'll still bother with physical bodies.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#24

Post by samplatt »

btilly wrote: post #10
mmanfrin wrote: post #6

A single inlet, attached to the Red Sea -- wouldn't this be a Sea and not an Ocean ? Also a story like this without a map is very annoying; my best guess as to where it is is here: https://www.google.com/maps/@10.1384475,40.4893819,818636a,2...

The Earth has a continental drift cycle where we form a supercontinent, which changes the circulation pattern, the supercontinent breaks up, the pieces drift around the world, and then recombine into a supercontinent again. The last supercontinent was Pangea Asia, Europe and Africa are what is left and they are continuing to break up. The next one will meet where the Pacific plate now is. So this starts as a rift, th…

Isn't it a bit early to be calling it a cycle? I mean, we've not even completed one full iteration yet.

Unless I'm wrong, and the tectonic plates existed and were moving long before the oceans did?

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#26

Post by WildUtah »

Americans don't need to travel so far to see an ocean being born. The block-fault zone from the Sea of Cortez up through most of Nevada is pulling apart rapidly and has already created 500 miles of inlet between Baja California and mainland Mexico.

Much of the next few hundred miles north through the Salton Sea and Death Valley is already under sea level and all of Nevada has thinning crust that will eventually fall under sea level.

in fact, most of the valleys in Nevada, in spite of typical elevations around 4000 feet, are already below sea level. It's just that they presently don't have any outlet to the sea in the Great Basin so alluvium has collected as the fault-block mountains created by spreading erode. [0] When a river has a chance to cut down through that soft debris, the valley floors will quickly drop below sea level also.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_block#Fault-block_mounta...

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#27

Post by mturmon »

WildUtah wrote: post #26

Americans don't need to travel so far to see an ocean being born. The block-fault zone from the Sea of Cortez up through most of Nevada is pulling apart rapidly and has already created 500 miles of inlet between Baja California and mainland Mexico. Much of the next few hundred miles north through the Salton Sea and Death Valley is already under sea level and all of Nevada has thinning crust that will eventually fall…

Thanks for this connection. Further pointer for the wikipedia-addicted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rift_valley

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#28

Post by FreeFull »

samplatt wrote: post #24
btilly wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Earth has a continental drift cycle where we form a supercontinent, which changes the circulation pattern, the supercontinent breaks up, the pieces drift around the world, and then recombine into a supercontinent again. The last supercontinent was Pangea Asia, Europe and Africa are what is left and they are continuing to break up. The next one will meet where the Pacific plate now is. So this starts as a rift, th…

Isn't it a bit early to be calling it a cycle? I mean, we've not even completed one full iteration yet. Unless I'm wrong, and the tectonic plates existed and were moving long before the oceans did?

The cycle has already completed many times. At all points there were oceans somewhere, it's not like the water materialised out of nowhere recently.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#29

Post by Tushon »

samplatt wrote: post #24
btilly wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Earth has a continental drift cycle where we form a supercontinent, which changes the circulation pattern, the supercontinent breaks up, the pieces drift around the world, and then recombine into a supercontinent again. The last supercontinent was Pangea Asia, Europe and Africa are what is left and they are continuing to break up. The next one will meet where the Pacific plate now is. So this starts as a rift, th…

Isn't it a bit early to be calling it a cycle? I mean, we've not even completed one full iteration yet. Unless I'm wrong, and the tectonic plates existed and were moving long before the oceans did?

One full iteration of continent formation and breaking up?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_supercontinents#Prehis...

Seems to indicate otherwise, but I'm certainly no expert on geology or whatever sub-specialization is concerned with plate tectonics and history of them.

Re: Africa 'witnessing birth of a new ocean' (2010)

#30

Post by themitchnz »

mmanfrin wrote: post #6

A single inlet, attached to the Red Sea -- wouldn't this be a Sea and not an Ocean ? Also a story like this without a map is very annoying; my best guess as to where it is is here: https://www.google.com/maps/@10.1384475,40.4893819,818636a,2...

This is the rift here. The three features running top to bottom from slight left to slight right. https://www.google.com/maps/@11.6842232,40.6702185,80711a,20...

This is where the explosion was https://www.google.com/maps/@12.642073,40.5202369,1118a,20y,...

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