Abstract
The Red Sea forks northwards into the Suez Graben and the Dead Sea-Arava Rift (Fig. 1). The southern part of the latter, about 165 km long, is occupied by the Gulf of Aqaba (Elat). A sinistral strike-slip movement of about 107 km which was suggested to have occurred along the Dead Sea–Arava Rift1–3 is related to the opening of the Red Sea proper1,4–6. The opening of the Red Sea was considered to have taken place in two stages. The various dates proposed for the first movement are: from 41 to 34 Myr (ref. 5), from 29 to 24 Myr (ref. 7) and from 20 Myr onwards6. The second movement is generally dated from 4–5 Myr to Recent. Garfunkel and Bartov8 claimed that the rifting in the Gulf of Suez was well under way in the span of the late Oligocene to early Miocene (30–20 Myr) and that a drastic change in the tectonic regime occurred in the middle Miocene (15–16 Myr). We suggest here, however, that the opening of the Red Sea is younger than 19–22 Myr.
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Bartov, Y., Steinitz, G., Eyal, M. et al. Sinistral movement along the Gulf of Aqaba — its age and relation to the opening of the Red Sea. Nature 285, 220–222 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1038/285220a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/285220a0
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