A Domain-Based Evolution Model for Red Sea: New Sea-Floor Spreading Evidence

The propagation of the Red Sea continental margin remains unevaluated. Despite the unanimous agreement that the southern Red Sea axial ridge valley is underlain by juvenile oceanic crust, there is a lack of such agreement for the central and northern Red Sea. Significant issues relating to Red Sea tectonics are whether the Arabian and Nubian plates have been completely separated (i.e., oceanic crust lies beneath the Red Sea from coast to coast) or if the oceanic crust is restricted to the Red Sea median valley. Here, we interpret a new spreading span of at least 12.5 Ma of magnetic anomaly stripes located in the Central Red Sea, which represent ancient seafloor spreading. We show that the Red Sea basement structure exhibits different fault trends, wherein the Red Sea crust is controlled by offshore inherited Precambrian suture zones. Both these infrastructure suture zones and the Dead Sea-Aqaba-transform faults control the Red Sea crustal evolution.