Dabbahu rifting episode (a rift opening in days)
Episodio de rifting de Dabbahu (apertura de un rift en días)
- Date
- septiembre de 2005 · confidence high
- Place
- Dabbahu volcano, Afar, Ethiopia
- Credited to
- Tim Wright, Atalay Ayele, Cindy Ebinger and international teams
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
In September 2005 a magma dyke some 60 km long was injected in ten days beneath the Afar depression and opened a fissure up to 8 m wide. It showed that continental rifting proceeds through rapid magmatic episodes.
Published by Wright and colleagues (Nature, 2006). The process is an example of rifting at a continental margin; comparison with oceanic rifting is still debated.
What it led to
- a model of lithospheric extension by dyke intrusion
- InSAR and seismic observation of a rifting episode
- monitoring of the formation of a future ocean at Afar