All this happened in a matter of days.
A 500-meters long volcanic vent that opened on September 26, 2006.
Photo credit: Julie Rowland, University of Auckland.
These plates are the Arabian, Somalian, and the African.
All the three plates are moving away from each other at a speed of roughly one centimeter per year.
This process is expected to take about 10 million years.
A valley forms like the African Rift Valley being a recent example.
The spreading process continues, the ocean becomes wider and forms a mature ocean like the Atlantic.
The fault zone continues to the top of the photo to the right of the small rhyolite center.
Photo credit: Elizabeth Baker, Royal Holloway, University of London.
Central section of 60 km-long rift zone that opened south of Dabbahu volcano.
Photo credit: Julie Rowland, University of Auckland.
Photo credit: Graham Dawes
Sources:Spiegel/Wikipedia/NERC
