00:00Africa is ripping itself apart.
00:02A giant crack is tearing through the continent and stretching south like a zipper being pulled open.
00:08And it's happening faster than anyone expected.
00:11Now, scientists think the main trigger might not be buried deep inside Earth, but up in the sky.
00:19That's right.
00:20What might be speeding up this breakup process is the region's drying climate and brutal droughts.
00:27And that feels off, right?
00:30Usually, tectonic plates move first and the climate changes afterward.
00:34But in East Africa, it might be flipped.
00:37The climate may actually be helping the plates pull apart faster.
00:42But first, let's look at what's really going on there.
00:46So, Earth's crust isn't one solid shell.
00:49It's made of giant tectonic plates, massive slabs of rock that never stop moving.
00:54They grind past each other, collide, slide under, climb over, or stretch apart.
01:00This motion is so slow, we don't notice it.
01:03But over long periods, those tiny shifts reshape continents, just like what's happening in Africa.
01:11For about 30 million years, the Arabian Plate has been moving away from the African Plate.
01:24And that's not the only breakup happening there.
01:27In Eastern Africa, the Somali Plate is stretching away from the Nubian Plate.
01:31This is opening up the East African Rift Valley, cutting right through places like Ethiopia and Kenya.
01:40The region where these plates meet has a name.
01:43It's a triple junction.
01:45But in this case, they aren't crashing into each other.
01:48All three tectonic plates are diverging.
01:50When that happens, the crust gets pulled in different directions at once, like fabric being stretched from three corners.
01:59It weakens, thins out, and cracks open.
02:03They're pulling apart at different speeds, too.
02:06The Arabian Plate is moving away from Africa at about an inch per year.
02:11The two African plates are separating more slowly, roughly between half an inch and 0.2 inches per year.
02:17And as they open that gap, hot material from deep inside Earth rises up and hardens, creating brand new seafloor
02:25along the split.
02:27I know, a few inches per year sounds ridiculously slow.
02:31But what makes this event so fascinating is that we're watching it happen in real time.
02:36We can actually see Africa slowly breaking apart.
02:40And it's terrifying.
02:41Back in 2005, a 35-mile-long rift that opened up in the Ethiopian desert.
02:48The crack is 20 feet wide in some places, which is roughly the size of a shipping container.
02:53This is just one example of how active the region really is.
02:58From space, satellite images show valleys and rifts slowly widening over time.
03:03And down on the ground, people are posting videos of places where the Earth has already split open, leaving big
03:10cracks and gaps.
03:12Roads, houses, even schools are getting torn apart.
03:15The whole area keeps shaking from earthquakes, and the volcanoes are very active.
03:22What I mean is, even though this splitting process is super slow, we can actually see it happening.
03:28And it's unstoppable.
03:30Experts believe this crack in the East African Rift Valley will become a gateway.
03:35Waters of the Indian Ocean will eventually invade the valley and fill the growing gap.
03:40That will help pull the land apart even more.
03:43And eventually, it'll create a brand new ocean.
03:47And we know that can happen, because Earth has done it before.
03:52That's exactly how the Atlantic Ocean formed about 180 million years ago, when South America and Africa pulled away from
04:01each other.
04:02If the East African Rift keeps opening up, parts of eastern Africa, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and a big chunk
04:10of Ethiopia could one day break away from the rest of the continent.
04:14That means countries like Zambia and Uganda could actually end up with brand new stunning coastlines.
04:21But don't pack your swimsuit yet.
04:24Unfortunately, none of us will be swimming in the waters of this future sixth ocean anytime soon.
04:30Scientists estimate the full split would take about 5 to 10 million years.
04:35That's basically forever in human terms.
04:38But in Earth terms, it's surprisingly fast.
04:41Almost like record speed.
04:44Now, scientists are trying to figure out why it's happening so fast.
04:48I mean, faster than it should.
04:50And here's a new intriguing possibility.
04:53A drying climate.
04:56One of the biggest clues starts right here, at Lake Turkana.
04:59This lake in Kenya is about 19 miles wide, and it's up to 400 feet deep in some places.
05:06But that's nothing compared to more than 5,000 years ago, when the lake level was up to 500 feet
05:13higher.
05:14Back then, the continent was going through something known as the African Humid Period.
05:20It was a time when Africa was wetter than it is today, and the Sahara wasn't a desert at all.
05:26It was green, wet, and full of lakes, rivers, and vegetation.
05:30But since then, the whole region has shifted into a much drier phase.
05:34So, researchers took sediment samples from the bottom of Lake Turkana to figure out past water levels,
05:41and how sediment washed into the lake over time.
05:46And while they were doing that, they noticed something else.
05:49Those sediment layers preserved lots of tiny faults, and even the fingerprints of ancient earthquakes.
05:57Wait, wow! That means Lake Turkana might not be a simple lake.
06:01It could actually be one huge crack in the earth that eventually filled up with water.
06:07In other words, it could be a direct result of this whole rifting process.
06:11And now, scientists think the same thing might be true for other deep, narrow lakes in the region,
06:17like Lake Malawi along the Tanzania-Mozambique border.
06:22So, scientists came up with a wild theory.
06:25What if these lakes are helping split Africa apart faster?
06:29Okay, maybe the theory isn't that wild.
06:32After all, water can indeed affect tectonic plates.
06:37For example, when glaciers melt and disappear, all that weight is removed,
06:42and the land underneath slowly pops back up,
06:45kind of like bread rising after you take something heavy off of it.
06:50That's called isostatic rebound,
06:52and big amounts of water can do the opposite.
06:55They press down on the crust,
06:57which can also affect things like faults and earthquakes.
07:01At Lake Turkana, something interesting shows up in the data.
07:06After the African humid period ended,
07:08the faults around the lake started moving faster,
07:11by about 0.007 inches per year.
07:15I know, that's a lot of zeros.
07:17But over thousands of years, that extra push can add up.
07:21And it could help explain why earthquakes might be more common in the region today
07:25than they were around 8,000 years ago.
07:28The study then ran computer simulations
07:31and found two likely reasons the shaking and fault movement sped up.
07:36First, there's less water pushing down on the ground.
07:39With that weight gone, the faults can slide more easily,
07:42like loosening a vice that was squeezing two pieces of wood together.
07:46Second, there's a volcano on an island on the south side of Lake Turkana.
07:51Deep underground, it has a pocket of hot, molten rock.
07:55When the lake level dropped after the African humid period,
07:59the pressure on the earth below eased up,
08:01like taking the lid off a pot.
08:04That lets the rock underneath melt a bit more.
08:07The extra melt flows into the volcano's magma chamber,
08:10swelling it up like a balloon.
08:12And that extra pressure can jolt nearby faults and trigger more movement.
08:17So yeah, drought and falling lake levels could be speeding up the splitting process.
08:22But it's not like the climate is creating the rift from scratch.
08:25It's more like the ground is already under tension,
08:28and the climate is giving it a little extra push.
08:32The real reason Africa is breaking apart
08:35might be related to something called super plume,
08:38an enormous column of scorching hot rock rising from deep inside the earth.
08:44Think of it like a balloon underground that's slowly filling up.
08:48As it pushes upward, it puts pressure on the crust above it.
08:52Over time, that pressure weakens the crust and slowly cracks it apart.
08:57And even though none of us will be alive to see the final result of this process,
09:02it's still amazing to realize that we're watching a continent split,
09:06almost in real time.
09:09That's it for today.
09:10So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
09:13then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:15Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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