Re: Tectonic News

[tholtz@geol.umd.edu]

> Folks, this article says a rift created in northern Ethiopia by a recent
> earthquake is the beginning of continental rifting.
>
> I don't think so.  That would take more than a single minor fault!
>
> And the Rift Valley is a failed continental rift.   It runs to that
> region.   Occasionally tectonic activity happens along those old failed
> rifts.
>

The hypothesis that the Rift Valley is a failed rift is outdated. Numerous
lines of research in the 1990s, including work using GPS readings, has
demonstrated that it is still active, and that the Ethiopian section of
Africa (aka the Ethiopian Plate) is headed eastward relative to the rest
of Africa at rates comparable to those of other divergent boundaries. So,
cool news of the manifestation of the latest rip in the Rift Valley!

                Thomas R. Holtz, Jr.
        Senior Lecturer, Vertebrate Paleontology
Department of Geology           Director, Earth, Life & Time Program
University of Maryland          College Park Scholars
        Mailing Address:
                Building 237, Room 1117
                College Park, MD  20742

http://www.geol.umd.edu/~tholtz/
http://www.geol.umd.edu/~jmerck/eltsite
Phone:  301-405-4084    Email:  tholtz@geol.umd.edu
Fax (Geol):  301-314-9661       Fax (CPS-ELT): 301-405-0796