Fission Track Evidence on the Initial Rifting of the Red Sea: Two Pulses, No Propagation

Abstract

Fission track analyses indicate that the Red Sea initially opened simultaneously along its entire length. Two distinct pulses of uplift and erosion characterized the early stages of rifting in the Red Sea throughout Egypt and in southwestern Saudi Arabia. The first pulse began at ∼34 million years ago (Ma). The second pulse began in the early Miocene (21 to 25 Ma) and marked the start of the main phase of extension. These data support a rigid plate model for continental extension. These results also indicate that the initiation of rift flank uplift, and therefore rifting, and volcanism occurred nearly simultaneously. This conflicts with classical models of active and passive extension that predict sequential development of these features.

Architecture of rifted continental margins and break-up evolution: insights from the South Atlantic, North Atlantic and Red Sea–Gulf of Aden conjugate margins

“…The major periods of extension/erosion that affected the Red Sea margins (Sudan/ Ethiopia and Arabia-Yemen) occurred before 26 Ma and were essentially synchronous (Omar & " " Steckler 1995). Erosion and breakup on the Yemeni margin of the Red Sea was associated with the emplacement of intrusive and plutonic rocks, which date from 35 to 16 Ma (i.e., syn-rift volcanism, Davison et al 1994;Davison et al 1998).…”

A detrital record of the Nile River and its catchment

“…Many studies have attempted to ascertain the timing of Red Sea Hills uplift, with researchers suggesting that uplift of rift shoulders began around 24 Ma , 25 -30 Ma (Ghebreab 1998), <29 Ma (Kenea et al 2001) and 34 Ma (Omar & Steckler 1995).…”

The Red Sea, Coastal Landscapes, and Hominin Dispersals

“…Later on, from about 40 Mya onwards in the late Oligocene, volcanic activity accompanied by occasional marine incursions from the Mediterranean became more marked, the main outlines of the Basin took shape, the Gulf of Aden began to open as a result of rifting that originated in the Indian Ocean, and rifting and seafloor spreading accentuated the separation of the Arabian Plate from Africa and turned the Red Sea into a progressively wider and deeper marine basin linked to the Indian Ocean (Bonatti, 1985;Omar and Steckler, 1995). The timing of some of these processes is not well dated.…”