Theory on Initial Red Sea Parting Disputed : Geology: Study of rift 34 million years before biblical reference to Moses shows a massive separation of land. Earlier concept focused on a gradual zipper-like split.

The original parting of the Red Sea saw the Earth’s crust separate like the rigid leaves of a table, say geologists disputing an earlier theory that the sea unzipped gradually from south to north.

The rift, 34 million years before the Bible says Moses parted the waters, took place about the same time along the length of what is now the Red Sea, geologists Gomaa I. Omar and Michael S. Steckler report in this week’s edition of the journal Science.

They believe continental movement, combined with volcanism, began a long process of separating Africa and Arabia. That process is still going on, as shown by the earthquake that struck the region Wednesday.

The Bible tells of Moses parting the Red Sea 3,300 years ago, but “he didn’t realize it was parted before, 34 million years earlier,” Omar, of the University of Pennsylvania, said.

The partings, of course, were vastly different.

The biblical account says Moses led the Jews through an opening in the water--an opening that was caused either by divine intervention, winds, a great wave or some other phenomenon, depending on whom one chooses to believe.

The parting analyzed by Omar and Steckler is a slow, massive separation of the land that created the opening for the sea itself.

“The Red Sea is still opening, but we don’t notice. Eventually it will be an ocean,” Omar said.

Still widening at about half an inch per year, the rift is the youngest region of continental breakup on the planet, allowing geologists to learn about processes that occurred in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans hundreds of millions of years earlier.

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Scientists had thought the Red Sea opened gradually from south to north because the process of developing oceanic crust on the sea floor followed that pattern, occurring about 5 million years ago, Omar said.

But Omar and Steckler dispute that, based on studies called “apatite fission tracking.” Apatite is a common mineral in the molten rocks that rose through the cracks in the Earth.

It contains small amounts of uranium 238, which changes into other types of uranium at a constant rate, leaving a trace in the structure of the rock crystals, he said.

The concentration of these tracks “tells when the mountain on both sides of the Red Sea came up,” Omar explained. That led to their conclusion that the initial breakup occurred all along the sea about the same time. But to geologists, Omar cautioned, “at the same time” means over the span of 1 million to 2 million years.