Will the East African Rift split the continent and create a new ocean, or will it fizzle out? A giant rift is slowly tearing Africa, the second-largest continent, apart. This depression known as the East African Rift is a network of valleys that stretches about 2,175 miles (3,500 kilometers) long, from the Red Sea to Mozambique, according to the Geological Society of London. So will Africa rip apart completely, and if so, when will it split? To answer this question, let's look at the region's tectonic plates, the outer parts of the planet's surface that can collide with each other, making mountains, or pull apart, creating vast basins. Along this colossal tear in eastern Africa, the Somalian tectonic plate is pulling eastward from the larger, older part of the continent, the Nubian tectonic plate, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. (The Somalian plate is also known as the Somali plate, and the Nubian plate is also sometimes called the African plate.) The Somalian and Nubian...