more pics

The "white stuff" is a lichen, common on a lot of trees and essentially harmless and unrelated to the dry splitting trunk.

The missing bark and holes in the dead wood lead me to believe that the tree is diseased and insects have made a home. What have the leaves looked like through the year?
I wouldn't hold out hope but an arborist may be able to determine whether it's treatable.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lichens On Trees ��

Shcks. That is pretty bad.

Unless there is some major encapsulation going on which I can not see I would plan for a replacement this fall.

buy a new one ... its not worth the cost of remedies ... if there are any ...

its not worthwhile looking at it to see... if it can recover in the next decade or so ...

or plant the new one off to the side.. so you can watch this one die ...

ken

might be sun scald common to young, thin barked maples. Is it on the SW side of the tree? It looks like the tree is trying to heal over. Under the loose bark I can see the growth edge of new bark. On the plus side, it MIGHT heal over if the canopy is healthy and vigorous given a few years. I had a sugar maple that scalded of bark about 3/4 of the way around the tree, and it is almost completely healed now.
On the down side, even if it heals, you might have an unhealthy punky core. I suppose the faster it heals the better. Or as folks have said, start over with a new tree. There are ways of mitigating scald (assuming that is the issue) such as paints and wraps.