continental drift has been happening for billions of years the earth used to be
one big supercontinent called Pangea the continents as we know them have been
roughly settled the way they are for around 20 million years more or less
but as tectonic plates are constantly shifting we aren't exactly standing
still in fact there is evidence to suggest that the constant of Africa is
splitting hello and welcome back to you life's
biggest questions I'm your host Rebecca fell gay I love
making my own sound effects and today I'm asking what if Africa broke apart
big continent big question before I get into this so why don't you guys let me
know the constant that you live on and the continents that you visited iris
once lucky enough to go to Iceland where I went to thing Villa National Park
there you can stand between the continental plates of Eurasia and North
America it's amazing let's have some continent chat in the
comments section down below the only continent I have never set foot on is
Antarctica and perhaps one day I will conquer that icy Beast goals if you like
our content please do leave a thumbs up and share this video with a friend stick
around to the end of the video where I'll be reading comments from a previous
one okay so before we get into the carving up of Africa let's have a little
lesson in geology and plate tectonics the earth is formed by a hot hot hot in
a core an outer core and mantle and the crust now the outer shell is divided
into nine main plates that glide and slide over the mantle the main and
largest plates are called the North American the Pacific Eurasian African
indo-australian Australian Indian South American and the Antarctic the biggest
being the Pacific plates there are other smaller place are formed over the years
- including the Caribbean plate the Nazca plate and a Somali plates all of
the plates can move and break up so the reason that these plates move is
convection in the mantle hot material near the Earth's core rises and colder
mantle Rock sinks drama happens when two plates collide causing earthquakes or
volcanoes okay so that's that the issue is that
right now there is friction between the large African plates the fourth largest
plate and the much much smaller Somali plate which is located under Africa near
you guessed it Somalia the plate is moving away from continental Africa at
the rate of 20 millimeters each year so in theory the landmass will break away
from the rest of Africa after millions of years between 10 to 50 to be precise
forming possibly a new constant and a whole new ocean this is what that will
look like despite the breakup being forecast of a
millions of years from now there is actually some current day drama the
break-up is causing a whole rift system and last year in March 2018 a giant
crack opened up in Southwest Kenya causing part of the Nairobi narak
highway to collapse in on itself have a look at the giant crack it was
three kilometers long drama drama luckily nobody was hurt but it was
pretty intense and a very stark sign that yes the continent will break up so
this question isn't really a what-if but a what when in the long-term this means
that yes Africa will break into two unequal pieces the new eastern island
will be much smaller the lithosphere is very thin in the Great Rift Valley which
will eventually break up when this happens Ethiopia will split into two
Kenya will be carved up with majority floating away into the new continent to
the east Tanzania will also be roughly split down the middle the ocean will
flood through the Rift and a new massive island will exist in the Indian Ocean
what will happen there well as far as one can predict 10 to 50 million years
into the future I would assume that by that point countries divided by the
split will have formed new borders and identities I can't even begin to project
what politics may be like that far into the future beyond that literally who
knows if humanity will still be around to enjoy their new continent and
thousands of kilometers of new shoreline although I will say protential her alpha
Theo Pia or whatever is in the future because right now it's one of the few
countries without a coastline when this happens it will no longer be land locks
take that 1993 while the long term seems far off and far different the short term
is seeing homes and businesses affected and in some cases destroyed by the break
right now the great crack of 2018 actually broke apart homes as well as
the highway the highway was you can't see me but I'm using air quotes here
fixed by the Kenyan government to filled it in with rocks and cements but really
it's not a long-term solution according to a study published in Nature the
African Rift systems remains one of the least monitored tectonic plate
boundaries which makes it challenging to constrain present-day seismic hazards
while global geologists are excited to see what happens in East Africa it seems
that a lot of governments of countries affected have their heads in the sand a
bit over the course of the next few hundred years and beyond events like
that highway collapse could become more common and the next time we might not be
so lucky with the lack of death toll planning and action now we'll create a
smoother transition in the future even if that future is very distant so that
is that for you thumbs up guys if you learned something new today and also do
let me know what continent you live in and have travel to before I go I'm just
gonna read some comments from a previous video about what if we stopped
vaccinating you had a lot of thoughts and here they come JJ PRS 306 said
thankfully we live in 2019 unfortunately the anti-vaccine Sliven 1319 yeah
anonymous said we all fall down there that's the answer to this title
question today do you know what you were absolutely right in that case and
actually today's question was one of the few where we don't all fall down we just
get a new island right Elizabeth Stroupe starred booj said I got an HPV
vaccination last week and honestly I have to say Elizabeth I am so glad
ladies if you're watching and you haven't had your HPV vaccination please
go and do it also just a round up this video I want to leave a personal thank
you to everyone who tweeted at YouTube and YouTube creators to get our
monetization back on the channel I honestly don't think they would have
paid attention if you guys hadn't listened to our video say thank you
so so much from everyone here at life's biggest questions so guys that's the end
of the video thank you for watching this episode of life's biggest questions
I'm your host Rebecca Folgate I'll catch you in the next video but until then
please do stay curious stay alert and never ever stop questioning