[extropy-chat] FWD (SK) The Coming Climate Collapse

Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
Sun Feb 8 02:04:20 UTC 2004


--- Technotranscendence <neptune at superlink.net> wrote:
> Hey, if you want lower sea levels - or if anyone does -remember the
> proposal to flood the East African Rift Valley?  It's a fairly cheap
> macroengineering project.  You just have to open up the part near the
> Red Sea a little.  In fact, that can probably be done with a few well
> placed conventional explosives and minimal excavation.  I'm sure if
> the opening is widened just a wee bit, nature will do the rest Anyone
> interested?

http://www.observ.u-bordeaux.fr/public/planetologie/paillou/djibouti/ign.gif

Appears that the topography has less than a km of land above sea level,
with a peak elevation of 55 meters (not necessarily at the lowest point
needed to get by). The Rift valley, while bottoming out at -157 meters,
is not that large, volume wise. This formation is known as an
aulacogen,(Gk. for furrow), as originally coined by Schatsky and
Bogdanoff in 1960, is a fault trough in a craton that meets, more or
less at right angles, a fold belt or the edge of the continent.

Djibouti is currently a democratic nation, its dictator having stepped
down in 1999. The Afar rebel group signed a peace agreement. The valley
is bereft of vegetation and animal species. Lake Asal is saline, and
the ocean water that seeps through fault lines picks up significant
mineral content. This area has significant geologic activity, with
great potential for geothermal energy, which might be increased if the
mass of water upon the fault lines were added by flooding the valley.
There is a volcanic crater in the rift valley.

The population of the country is only about 600,000.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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