13 Jun 11 - "This may be a major eruption," says reader Bruce
Farrington. "It was preceded by a swarm of earthquakes fairly large for
volcanic quakes, including two at 5.7."
"During the late afternoon and evening of June 12 2011, a series of moderate
earthquakes struck the Afambo, Eritrea area," says earthquake-report.com. "The
moderate earthquakes were followed by 2 strong 5.7 earthquakes.
“Pieter De Leeuw (Netherlands) has traced the eruption as probably coming from
the Nabro volcano, a crater with a diameter of 8 km," continues the article on
earthquake-report.com. "We agree with him. Nabro volcano has no records of
recent eruptions.”
Right now, no official reports have been issued as to what is going on.
See:
http://earthquake-report.com/2011/06/12/unusual-series-of-moderate-volcanic-earthquakes-in
-eritrea-and-ethiopia/
Also see:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/12/earthquakes-and-volcanic-eruption-in-ethiopia/
Thanks to Benjamin Napier,
Chelston Thomas,
Bruce Farrington and Caroline Snyder for these links
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The East African Rift System (EARS) is one the geologic wonders of
the world, a place where the earth’s tectonic forces are presently
trying to create new plates by splitting apart old ones. In simple
terms, a rift can be thought of as a fracture in the earth’s surface
that widens over time, or more technically, as an elongate basin
bounded by opposed steeply dipping normal faults.
Geologists are still debating exactly how rifting comes about, but the process
is so well displayed in East Africa (Ethiopia-Kenya-Uganda-Tanzania) that
geologists have attached a name to the new plate-to-be; the Nubian Plate makes
up most of Africa, while the smaller plate that is pulling away has been named
the Somalian Plate.
These two plates are moving away from each other and also away from the Arabian
plate to the north. The point where these three plates meet in the Afar region
of Ethiopia forms what is called a triple-junction.
However, all the rifting in East Africa is not confined to the Horn of Africa;
there is a lot of rifting activity further south as well, extending into Kenya
and Tanzania and Great Lakes region of Africa.
From:
http://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml
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