Internal structure of the Dead Sea leaky transform (rift) in relation to plate kinematics

Neotectonics of Turkey – a synthesis

https://www.utdallas.edu/~rjstern/egypt/PDFs/Cenozoic%20Red%20Sea/BosworthRedSeaJAES05.pdf

The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Basins

The relative motion between the plates on each side of the East African Rift Valley can be obtained from the opening of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The calculated direction of relative motion agrees well with fault plane solutions for earthquakes north of the equator.

Plate Tectonics of the Red Sea and East Africa

Recent surface and subsurface geological investigations in Israel and Jordan provide new data for the re-examination of Dubertret’s (1932) hypothesis of the left-hand shear along the Dead Sea rift. It is found that while none of the pre-Tertiary sedimentary or igneous rock units extend right across the rift, all of them resume a reasonable palaeographical configuration once the east side of the rift is placed 105 km south of its present position. It is therefore concluded that the 105 km post-Cretaceous, left-hand shear along the Dead Sea rift is well established. The 40 to 45 km offset of Miocene rocks and smaller offsets of younger features indicate an average shear movement rate of 0.4 to 0.6 cm a -1 during the last 7 to 10 Ma. Unfortunately, the 60 km pre-Miocene movement cannot be dated yet. Along the Arava and Gulf of Aqaba and in Lebanon the shear is divided over a wide fault zone within and outside the rift.

A discussion on the structure and evolution of the Red Sea and the nature of the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Ethiopia rift junction - The shear along the Dead Sea rift

THE fact that quantitative results from unrelated earth sciences confirm and complement each other is a significant success of the continental drift hypothesis. The results of geophysical and oceanographical research on the age and rate of opening of the Red Sea are compared here with the geological and palaeogeographical indications of the component of this movement along the Dead Sea Rift. The interpretation of the geomagnetic anomalies in the median trench of the Red Sea is supposed to show1 that the rate of opening of the Red Sea at latitude 16° is approximately 1 cm yr−1 during the last 3–4 million years. New data on the sinistral movement along the Dead Sea Rift which are presented here show a similar rate of movement of the Arabian block northwards relative to the Israel–Sinai block during the Pliocene–Pleistocene. This movement was preceded by a period of standstill during the Miocene, which may correspond to the pause in the expansion of the mid-ocean ridges 10 million years ago (refs. 2 and 3).

Zwi Garfunkel

Papers

Age and Rate of the Sinistral Movement along the Dead Sea Rift