Is it a desaster or not?

Giant Underground Blob of Magma Puzzles Scientists

The Afar Rift in Ethiopia is marked by enormous gashes that signal the breakup of the African continent and the beginnings of a new ocean basin, scientists think.

The fractures appear eerily similar to seafloor spreading centers, the volcanic ridges that mark the boundaries between two pieces of oceanic crust. Along the ridges, lava bubbles up and new crust is created, slowly widening the ocean basin.

But a look deep beneath the Afar Rift reveals the birth announcements may be premature. "It's not as close to fully formed seafloor spreading as we thought," said Kathy Whaler, a geophysicist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

Whaler and her colleagues have spotted 120 cubic miles (500 cubic kilometers) of magma sitting in the mantle under the Afar Rift. Hot liquids like magma like to rise, so the discovery is a conundrum.

"We didn't expect this, because magma wants to pop up like a cork in water; it's too buoyant compared to the surrounding medium in the mantle," Whaler told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Models predict that at spreading ridges, magma should sit just under the rifts, in the crust. That's what geoscientists see in the oceans, at places like the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Juan de Fuca Ridge. But not only is the giant pool at Afar extremely deep, but it is also mostly below the sleeping Badi volcano, many miles west of the scene of a 2005 series of underground magma intrusions, Whaler said.

"You just wouldn't expect to have a blob of magma still underneath this other area," Whaler said. "It's one of the things we're still having a lot of discussions about."

The findings, published Sept. 5 in the journal Nature Geoscience, add a new twist to the Afar Rift puzzle. Thanks to intense international attention — from scientists intrigued by the 2005 intrusions — the region is one of the best-studied spreading centers in the world. But a lively debate continues over whether the Afar Rift is a unique case or a textbook example of a fracturing continent.

Triple threat

The Afar region sits at the junction of three tectonic plates, all of which are spreading apart. Here, Earth's brittle crust fractures as the plates tear away from one another, but the mantle underneath adjusts by stretching like warm plastic. The mantle rocks rising beneath the thinning crust melt from lowered pressure, creating magma. [Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench]

In 2005, a series of earthquakes in Dabbahu, Ethiopia, announced the arrival of new magma squeezing into the crust. Vertical fingers of molten rock shot into underground fractures, 14 in all. The longest intrusion was about 26 feet (8 meters) wide and spread through 37 miles (60 km) of crust in just 10 days.



Whaler and her colleagues searched for the source of these vertical injections, called dikes, with instruments that measure changes in magnetic and electric fields in the Earth. Both are sensitive to underground liquids, which have a higher electrical conductivity than rock (meaning electrons have an easier time moving through them).

The team discovered the feeder for the magma intrusions: a shallow, small chamber directly under the dikes, about 4 miles (7 km) wide and 3 to 6 miles (5 to 10 km) below the surface.

Rare reservoir

But in the mantle, the layer beneath Earth's crust, a huge 18-mile-wide (30 km) region of very high conductivity reaches down to a depth of 20 miles (35 km), well below the 12-mile-thick (20 km) crust. This giant magma zone isn't one big pool, but a series of interconnected pockets, scientists think.

The findings were bolstered by research in geochemistry, rock composition and seismology from other teams, Whaler said. "The results from standard electrical conductivity get a huge range, so the additional information gives additional bounds. I suspect nobody would have believed us without some supporting evidence from other techniques."

For example, a study published in the journal Nature on July 4 shows the mantle under the Afar region is about 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) hotter than it should be. And although the crust is thinner than in other spots around the planet, it is actually thicker than models predict. [What is Earth Made Of?]

Questions remain

Taken together, the recent discoveries suggest researchers still don't understand how the final stages of breakup occur in continental crust, Whaler said.

"Most people have said we can look at the Afar Rift and it's a good on-land analogue of midocean ridges," she said. "But what this result says is, there is still quite a distinct difference between the crust and upper mantle beneath a fully formed spreading ridge and the Afar Rift."

For Roger Buck, a geophysicist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory who was not involved in the study, the discovery raises questions about what controls the timing of magmatic activity such as dike intrusions.

"A commonly held view is that long, quiet periods occur because there is no magma available in the crust to trigger dike opening and volcanism at spreading centers," Buck wrote in an accompanying editorial published in Nature Geoscience. "However, the results ... bring into question this standard view. Instead, there may always be large quantities of magma available in the mantle and shallow crust at many spreading centers."





By LiveScience, 1 day 18 hours ago

Nuba of Sudan.

Sulle tracce dell'antica Nubia


di Emilio Radice



Sudan. Piramidi, emozioni e scoperte nel deserto dei faraoni neri, in un Paese che custodisce millenni di storia

Contenuti correlati

LE IMMAGINI



Comunque sia, è bene armarsi di buon senso. Poi via, attraverso il deserto, in una dimensione che è di maggiore libertà, fino a raggiungere il Nilo fra la Terza e la Quarta Cataratta. Ed ecco Old Dongola, i bei palmeti sul fiume, i campi arati con i buoi, i villaggi con le porte decorate con mille colori, la gente gentile che accoglie i visitatori e offre il chai. Siamo nel cuore della Nubia, le radici africane dell'Egitto, dove i faraoni cercavano oro, schiavi e donne di bellezza leggendaria, belle tuttora. Alcune ti trafiggono gli occhi con lo sguardo, quasi sfacciate. Poi via, deserto ancora, cammelli, scorci d'un Nilo pre-moderno, con feluche e campi arati. Miraggi che tremolano di calore in lontananza.



Fino alla magia di Kerma, con le tombe incise di geroglifici sulle rocce a strapiombo in riva al fiume e il piccolo museo dei Sette Faraoni: trovati intatti in un buco di terra nel 2003 sono belli da mozzare il fiato. Ovvio, a questo punto, che ci siano anche le piramidi: sulla strada per Karima, a Nuri, nei pressi del grande tempio di Jebel Barkal, la "montagna sacra" dell'antico regno di Napata, patrimonio mondiale dell'Unesco. Poi, piegando verso sud, le tante aguzze piramidi della necropoli reale di Meroe, dove i re nubiani si rifugiarono per sfuggire all'avanzata degli Egizi.



Ma fra una pagina di storia e l'altra c'è la gente. Ed è in un piccolo punto del deserto di Bayuda che vorremmo concludere questo racconto del Sudan: il cratere di El Atrun, uno dei pochi posti al mondo dove si torna indietro di un paio di millenni. Ci si arriva attraverso piste sabbiose e capanne di pastori che sembrano nidi di uccello. Nel cratere ci si infila attraverso un bordo sbrecciato, ed è un incantesimo: sul fondo del vulcano una ventina di donne nomadi raccolgono da un pozzo acqua salmastra e la spargono in vasche di fango. Le loro vesti sono macchie di azzurro, di giallo, di verde. Tutto il resto è bruciato dal sole. Poi attendono che l'acqua evapori e loro, accosciate per ore, con le mani raschiano il sale fangoso, ne fanno sacchi che poi caricano su carovane di asini e cammelli. Tutto accade con un caldo soffocante, un caldo che non dà tregua. È così da millenni, salvo il fatto che ora c'è qualcuno che le osserva. Noi. (12 settembre 2013)

Relationship between Italy and Sudan.

H.E. Ambassador Armando Barucco Visits the IFRC Distribution Center in East Nile Locality


H.E. Armando Barucco, the Ambassador of Italy in Sudan, together with the Secretary General of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society, Dr. Osman Gaafar and the Country Representative of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Dr. Aisha Maulana, visited today the IFRC Center in East Nile Locality for the distribution of basic necessities to the flood victims. This humanitarian assistance comes within the framework of the IFRC appeal denominated “Emergency appeal: Sudan Floods”, 50 percent of which has been covered by the Italian Government donation of 350,000 Euros.



It is worth mentioning that Italy was one of the first countries to respond to the appeal of the Sudanese Government and the Italian donation is among the largest provided so far in favor of the flood victims.



The IFRC plan is to provide technical and logistical support for the identification of needs, in order to provide assistance to approximately 35,000 people (7,000 families) in the three states most hit by the floods: Khartoum, River Nile and Northern States, for a period of six months. In particular, basic necessities like hygiene kits and water purification products to improve sanitary conditions and provide emergency services in the areas of health reference, shelters, relief items, as well as sanitations and hygiene interventions to prevent and mitigate disease outbreaks, will be distributed.



Finally, for the period 2011- 2013, Italian Aid to Sudan has reached approximately 20 million Euros. Main contributions of the Italian Government are used to implement bilateral projects, especially in the health sector in Eastern Sudan, and finance multilateral projects carried out by International and UN Agencies, such as WFP, UNFPA, UNMAS, UNICEF, WB, UNHCR, UNIDO, and support Italian NGOs, like Emergency, OVCI, VIS, COSV, COOPI and INTERSOS, which are very active at grassroots level in the Sudan.



By Press Release, 1 day 18 hours ago

No hate for the Arabs I beg the Darfurians !!!

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE Built Eleven Model Villages for Returnees in Darfur


Khartoum – Governor of the Central Darfur State said a total of 3 million acres of land in various localities will be cultivated during the current agricultural season.



Speaking to Sudan Vision, Mohamed Musa Ahmed said the State is witnessing major voluntary return of IDPs during the agricultural season, stating that the voluntary return commission provided free seeds to IDPs.



The State has rich and fertile lands which encouraged residents to grow many important crops such as millet, sesame, groundnut, cicer and wheat, which are cultivated during the rainy and winter seasons, the governor said. Sunflower will also be cultivated in an area estimated at 1000 acres after studies are conducted in collaboration with the Arab organization, he added.



About 14,000 IDPs, 60% of the total number of IDPs, left the camps and headed for the agricultural areas for cultivation, said Radi Ali Al-Amin, voluntary return commissioner.



The stability of the security situation contributed directly to the success of the agricultural season, he said, adding that no breaches or assaults on citizens were reported.



Radi announced the construction of 11 fully-equipped model villages in various localities to receive IDPs. The construction of the villages was funded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and the League of Arab States, he said, adding that 50% of these villages were ready and IDPs have begun to settle around them; a matter which indicates a tremendous voluntary return in Central Darfur after the considerable stability witnessed in the area.



By Hana Abdul Hai, 13 hours 37 minutes ago

Sudanese book.

Publications: Living with Colonialism: Nationalism and Culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan


Histories written in the aftermath of empire have often featured conquerors and peasant rebels but have said little about the vast staffs of locally recruited clerks, technicians, teachers, and medics who made colonialism work day-to-day. Even as these workers maintained the colonial state, they dreamed of displacing imperial power. This book examines the history of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1898-1956) and the Republic of Sudan that followed in order to understand how colonialism worked on the ground, affected local cultures, influenced the rise of nationalism, and shaped the postcolonial nation-state.

Relying on a rich cache of Sudanese Arabic literary sources, including poetry, essays, and memoirs, as well as on colonial documents and photographs, this perceptive study examines colonialism from the viewpoint of those who lived and worked in its midst. By integrating the case of Sudan with material on other countries, particularly India, Sharkey gives her book broad comparative appeal. She shows that colonial legacies—such as inflexible borders, atomized multi-ethnic populations, and autocratic governing structures—have persisted, hobbling postcolonial nation-states. Thus countries like Sudan are still living with colonialism, struggling to achieve consensus and stability within borders that a fallen empire has left behind.



By The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 12 hours 10 minutes ago

History of a nation.

Kitchener's policy and the post-war debate


It has been argued that "this was not a deliberately genocidal policy; rather it was the result of [a] disastrous lack of foresight and rank incompetence on [the] part of the [British] military."[53] British historian Niall Ferguson also argues that "Kitchener no more desired the deaths of women and children in the camps than of the wounded Dervishes after Omdurman, or of his own soldiers in the typhoid stricken hospitals of Bloemfontein."[54]





Lord Kitchener (pictured) was one of the most controversial British generals in the war. Kitchener took over control of British forces from Lord Roberts and was responsible for expanding the British response to the Boers guerrilla tactics.

However, to Kitchener and the British Command "the life or death of the 154,000 Boer and African civilians in the camps rated as an abysmally low priority" against military objectives. As the Fawcett Commission was delivering its recommendations, Kitchener wrote to St John Brodrick defending his policy of sweeps, and emphasising that no new Boer families were being brought in unless they were in danger of starving. This was disingenuous as the countryside had by then been devastated under the "Scorched Earth" policy (the Fawcett Commission in December 1901 in its recommendations commented that: "to turn 100,000 people now being held in the concentration camps out on the veldt to take care of themselves would be cruelty") and now that the New Model counter insurgency tactics were in full swing, it made cynical military sense to leave the Boer families in desperate conditions in the countryside.

According to writer S.B. Spies, "at [the Vereeniging negotiations in May, 1902] Boer leader Louis Botha stated that he had tried to send [Boer] families to the British, but they had refused to receive them." Spies quotes a Boer commandant referring to Boer women and children made refugees by Britain's scorched-earth policy as saying, "Our families are in a pitiable condition and the enemy uses those families to force us to surrender." Spies adds, "and there is little doubt that that was indeed the intention of Kitchener when he had issued instructions that no more families were to be brought into the concentration camps." Thomas Pakenham writes of Kitchener's policy U-turn,

No doubt the continued 'hullabaloo' at the death-rate in these concentration camps, and Milner's belated agreement to take over their administration, helped change Kitchener's mind [some time at the end of 1901]. ... By mid-December at any rate, Kitchener was already circulating all column commanders with instructions not to bring in women and children when they cleared the country, but to leave them with the guerrillas. ... Viewed as a gesture to Liberals, on the eve of the new session of Parliament at Westminster, it was a shrewd political move. It also made excellent military sense, as it greatly handicapped the guerrillas, now that the drives were in full swing. ... It was effective precisely because, contrary to the Liberals' convictions, it was less humane than bringing them into camps, though this was of no great concern to Kitchener.

Come eravamo in Sudan.

Prima foto donne soldatese del Accademia Militare 1971 .......
Coservattuar Sudanese donne e uomini insieme cantare 1975 ....
Maggiore di Polizia di Stato con il nigab 2003.....tempo duro per la donna.....

In Islam secondo la mia ponto di vista coprire viso una parte e maniche ma non come il burka e siamo in tempo che donne e uomini devonao lavorare insieme .......azim