No. This event is not caused by rising sea levels set off by man at the end of a long climate dynamics chain. But warmists are are welcome to blame that on man too, as desperate as they may be.
Hat tip: DirkH
Geological events often take their time, where a few millimeters per year is fast. But in this case, Mother Nature appears to have hit the super fast-forward button, demonstrating her awesome power.
Volcano Erta Ale (above) in northeastern Ethiopia has begun to gurgle and widespread seismic activity threatens to redefine the map (see below) of the African east near the Red Sea – and to do so very quickly. Der Spiegel (in English) reports on dramatic geological events now unfolding.
Der Spiegel headlines and writes:
Violent Seismic Activity Tearing Africa in Two
Researchers say that lava in the region is consistent with magma normally seen on the sea floor — and that water will ultimately cover the desert.
The earth is in upheaval in northeastern Africa, and the region is changing quickly. The desert floor is quaking and splitting open, volcanoes are boiling over, and seawaters are encroaching upon the land. Africa, researchers are certain, is splitting apart at a rate rarely seen in geology.”
Click here for an outstanding photo gallery.
For now, the only thing holding back the Red Sea water from the Danakil Depression (see following graphic) are hills, and they appear to be sinking quickly, writes Der Spiegel.
And now that the Erta Ale volcano nearby is erupting – something no one anticipated, it could disrupt that last barrier that keeps the Red Sea at bay. Der Spiegel:
The magma coming out of Erta Ale has the same chemical composition as the kind that emerges from deep-sea volcanoes. The entire region increasingly resembles an ocean floor — one without water.”
Magma typically seen under the Red Sea is flowing underneath the continent, and eventually something has to give. Fissures are appearing at many locations in the region. According to geologist Tim Wright, fellow at the University of Leeds’ School of Earth and Environment:
The hills could sink in a matter of days”
Tectonic activity has increased recently not only in that African region, but has also spread into Saudi Arabia. De Spiegel quotes Oxford University’s David Ferguson on his predictions for volcanic eruptions and earthquakes in the region over the next decade, saying they will…:
…become of increasingly large magnitude.”
Very interesting processes at work here and very nice to have a front row seat to observe the developments here from the beginning.
The biggest open lab for volcanologists and geologists in the world.
There has been an earlier edition in Der Spiegel from 2006 that discussed the events here that started around 2005.
The tectonic process of quakes and volcanic activity of course started earlier but no one took notice at that time.
One of the reasons for that was that it has been a war zone for a long time.
Don’t get the impression that this process will end with a new ocean cutting off the Horn of Africa from the African continent within your life time. To see the (always) temporary end result of this process you have to come back in let’s give or take 8 to 10 million years.
By than it will be questionable if you will find any people alive on the planet because I don’t think human kind has ever faced an event like this. The Toba eruption 71.000 years ago is said to have caused a bottle neck in the development of humans (altough recently a report has appeared stating it the eruption was huge but not that dramatic) but compared to what we can expect here, the Toba eruption has been a walk in the park.
At a certain point in time huge fissures eruptions are going to pose a serious risk for all life on the planet, extremely critical the moment and and speed the water comes in.
These kind of processes have been connected to mass extinction events in the past, not only by the poisoning of the oceans, but also by poisoning the atmosphere and blocking the sun for a long, long time. You only have to think of the Laki eruption of 1863 that produced a fissure with a length of only 72 km to get an idea of the potential threat that is in the making here. This eruption caused the poisoning of the NH hemisphere (dry fog caused by the clouds of poisonous hydrofluoric acid/sulfur-dioxide) mortality rates went up. Iceland lost almost it’s entire livestock and hals it;s population. In England, France and Germany People working outdoors in lower parts of the countries where the poisonous fog accumulated, like lake’s, riverbanks and valley’s dropped dead while working their fields, or fishing. Extreme cold waves and extreme weather events took out food crops and an estimated 1 million people died from Iceland to Norway, England, France, Germany. Poland, Ukrain, Italy Egypt and North America.
Now imagine an active volcanic fissure with a length of hundreds of kilometers! There will be a gigantic fireworks the moment water enters the fissure. This will put huge amounts of SO2 into the stratosphere.
I am convinced that this will be a massive event that is going to dominate our weather and all life on earth for a very long time and the safest place to watch it is from a space station orbiting the planet.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,405947,00.html
Maybe the Greens should protest. 😉
Isn’t nature beautiful – something we have to protect and be gentle with?
Human sacrifices are lining up: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20110122-32599.html
Gaia is angry. She must be fed with the pure of heart.
Oh boy! The sea floods into all that below sea level area, lowering world-wide sea level. The volcano is flooded and does a Krakatoa imitation. The resulting caldera takes in even more water. The rift gets lubricated. A lot of things could happen in a very short period. “May you live in interesting times”.
It will take decades or more to fill the rift to sea level. Evaporation may match inflows at first. The water may be toxic from all the volcanic salts.
It will be interesting to see how a warm inland sea affect the surrounding climate.
Its a fascinating volcano. Erta Ale has had an active lava lake for years and to quote Eruptions blog re the start of the lava flows in December: “All this activity is part of the ongoing activity at Erta’Ale that started in 1967″.
Hmm, 1967. While not to detract from Erta Ale, I do detect a tiny bit of spin from Der Spiegel.