I'm guessing it's one of the slowest phenomenas on earth. Pretty cool though.
[curious.com]

It's official: Africa is breaking up with itself. That's what geologist Christopher Moore of the University of Leeds has recently concluded after studying the East African Rift with new GPS and satellite analysis. For years now, geologists have been debating whether two parts of Africa will separate or further collide in the far off future. Thanks to new tech, there's a building consensus that, yes, Africa is splitting further apart along the East African Rift Valley at about a half-inch a year. The Arabian Plate, basically the Arabian Peninsula, is also separating from Africa at about one inch per year. Researchers now believe that Africa will look like the photo below in 50 million years—a relatively short period of time when it comes to the grueling pace of geological phenomena. They've dubbed the larger left chunk the Nubian Plate and the smaller left one the Somali Plate. Moore and his colleagues are also increasingly convinced that Erta Ale, a highly-active shield volcano in northwestern Ethiopia, is playing a focal role in the split. Erta Ale is a whopping 31 miles wide, has sustained the world's oldest ongoing lava pool, and is producing so much magma, it's building increasing pressure between the Nubian and Somali Plates. We're witnessing the tedious birth of a brand new ocean because this split will allow water to inundate Africa's Great Rift Valley. The valley includes Olduvai Gorge, believed to be the evolutionary birthplace of modern humans. At any rate, I can't help but smile knowing that, someday, the island of Madagascar will have a new big brother!