And yet, by the time you reach the end of this sentence, Africa will have moved a little closer to splitting apart. The remote Afar region of Northern Ethiopia sits at the center of a Y-shaped rift system, along which the continent is separating to form a new ocean. “Afar is a beautiful place because it (the new ocean floor) is not quite yet submerged,” Watts explained. That’s also then interplaying with that rifting rate, causing these variations.”Time to learnThat rifting rate, Watts stresses, is extremely slow. The continental rifting process can fail, like the Midcontinent Rift that would have ripped North America apart around the Great Lakes.

Source: Ethiopian News March 16, 2026 10:33 UTC