metre opening. "This was a fast opening rate within a span of about two months, from September 14 to early November, an exciting event in scientific terms," said Dr. Atalay. "Compare this to the very slow movement of the plate tectonic affecting the crust of the earth in the Afar region, which is about 17 mm per year," he explained. Professor Cindy Binger of Royal Holloway, University of London, presented the findings at the Fall Meeting of the American geophysical Union in San Francisco. Dr. Atalay said there were no immediate concerns about the Afar region, noting that it would take a couple of million years before the area turns into an ocean basin. For scientists researching the phenomena, the Afar Region is a natural laboratory where the transition between oceanic rift and continental rift is visible on land. Such transition is also evident in Iceland. "The events we witnessed in the Afar region for about seven weeks, beginning in mid-September, have enabled us to look into the possible faster rate of rifting in the Afar region," said Atalay. "What we saw was a microcosm of a process of an earth split that takes millions of years to evolve into an ocean basin," he declared.
