Sudden large-scale events on land pose a much more serious hazard to populations living near the rift than would several smaller events, Ebinger said.
SHOOT: People seem to be constantly surprised and theories proving invalid. We seem to know very little about our world; what's important at any rate.
A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.
Using newly gathered seismic data from 2005, researchers reconstructed the event to show the rift tore open along its entire 35-mile length in just days. Dabbahu, a volcano at the northern end of the rift, erupted first, then magma pushed up through the middle of the rift area and began "unzipping" the rift in both directions, the researchers explained in a statement today.
"We know that seafloor ridges are created by a similar intrusion of magma into a rift, but we never knew that a huge length of the ridge could break open at once like this," said Cindy Ebinger, professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Rochester and co-author of the study.
The result shows that highly active volcanic boundaries along the edges of tectonic ocean plates may suddenly break apart in large sections, instead of in bits, as the leading theory held. |
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