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.

The issue here is nitrogen. It’s a very important component of fertilizer, and is currently provided through man made manufactured fertilizer. It can get really expensive, especially in cash strapped continents like Africa. The tree’s name is Faidherbia albida. It’s one of several trees that can capture nitrogen from the air through its roots and incorporate it into its leaves.

The kicker is that it grows in the dry season and drops its leaves in the rainy season, when crops start growing. The leaves drop with the nitrogen in them, and fertilize the crops below. That is, if they’re planted below.
Three- to four-fold increases in corn yields were reported, as well as yields for millet and cotton.

Why wasn’t this reported before? Other potentials for this tree are that it makes mining for fertilizer less necessary, once you have a natural source that sucks it out of the air and puts it in its leaves. That clears up a lot of pollution and industrial activity that is invested in producing potash, and things of the like.