A whole lot of shaking will be going on

As you read these words, the continent of Africa is being ripped apart. In spite of what you might have seen on YouTube, that statement is true. Like a planetary zipper, a gaping wound is opening from northern Ethiopia south through Kenya, Tanzania and parts south. Volcanic ash that accumulated in the scar over a million years, a desolate place called Olduvai Gorge, gave anthropologists the first fossils of our human ancestors.

A similar gorge emerges from the northern Atlantic Ocean and extends through present day Iceland.

Planet Earth is younger in geological terms than we imagine. And the p...