East Africa’s Rift Thinness Signals Emergence of a New Ocean
Seismic data show the Turkana Rift in East Africa has crust as thin as about 13 km in its center (edges ~35 km), crossing a necking threshold that makes continental breakup likely and the formation of a new ocean possible in the distant future. This accelerated rifting, ongoing for ~4 million years, may also explain exceptional fossil preservation in the Turkana region, with findings published in Nature Communications.