Structural trends in the northern Red Sea.

The N Red Sea is underlain by a series of Plio-Pleistocene sedimentary sequences that unconformably overlie evaporitic series of late Miocene age. A series of bathyal rifts and cogenetic diapirs, trending approx N-S, were recently discovered in that region between 26o30'N and 28oN. The discerned structural trends were developed during the Plio-Pleistocene. The encountered structural patterns deviate considerably from the NW-SE structural trends that prevail in the central Red Sea as well as in the faults that border the N Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez. The new data indicate that the axis of the tectonic extension at the N Red Sea jumped to show a N-ward orientation. It is suggested that incipient spreading center extends from the Red Sea N to the Gulf of Elat and the Dead Sea rift. -from Authors