In the Ethiopian desert of Africa, a rift opened up in the ground, in just a matter of days that is 35 miles long, and at certain spots 20 feet wide. Studies in geophysical research recently found that the processes creating the rift are almost the same as to what goes on at the bottom of oceans. This leads us to believe that there will eventually be a sea in the area.
The volcano Dabbahu, which is located at the northern end of the rift is responsible for creating it. When it first erupted, it pushed magma up through the middle and began cracking open the ground in both directions.
The African and Arabian tectonic plates meet in the remote Afar desert of Northern Ethiopia. They have been spreading apart at a speed of less than 1 inch per year, for the last 30 million years. It is this rifting which made the 186-mile Afar depression, as well as the Red Sea.
Scientists seem to believe that the Red Sea will eventually pour into this new sea in roughly another 1 million years. The new ocean would be connected to both the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, which is an arm of the Arabian Sea between Somalia in eastern Africa and Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula.
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