Transition from continental rifting to oceanic spreading in the northern Red Sea area.

ABSTRACT: Lithosphere extension, which plays an essential role in plate tectonics, occurs both in continents (as rift systems) and oceans (spreading along mid-oceanic ridges). The northern Red Sea area is a unique natural geodynamic laboratory, where the ongoing transition from continental rifting to oceanic spreading can be observed. Here, we analyze travel time data from a merged catalogue provided by the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian seismic networks to build a three-dimensional model of seismic velocities in the crust and uppermost mantle beneath the northern Red Sea and surroundings. The derived structures clearly reveal a high-velocity anomaly coinciding with the Red Sea basin and a narrow low-velocity anomaly centered along the rift axis. We interpret these structures as a transition of lithosph

SUBMITTER: El Khrepy S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7946956 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature