Original Coverage: North America’s ‘broken heart’: The billion-year-old scar from when the continent nearly ripped apart

The Midcontinent Rift is an ancient rift valley in the Midwestern United States. The rift began roughly 1.1 billion years ago due to tectonic forces pulling what is now the North American continent in opposite directions. Evidence suggests the rifting process stalled about 100,000 years after it began, but scientists aren’t sure why. The only parts of the rift that are visible today are near Lake Superior, where huge blocks of basalt and other rift-related rocks are exposed, according to the National Park Service. The industry is now seeing a revival of copper-rich rocks near the Lake Superior region, which have been mined for at least 8,000years. The basalt can react with water to make hydrogen, which is a key ingredient in clean energy and an ingredient in key chemicals, Live Science previously reported. It’s unclear why the rift ended after 100,00 years, but some scientists link the failure to a sea rifting episode along North America’s Atlantic coast.

Source: Livescience.com  |  Read full article