Evolution of the Danakil Depression (Afar, Ethiopia) in Light of Radiometric Age Determinations

Barberi, F.; Borsi, S.; Ferrara, G.; Marinelli, G.; Santacroce, Roberto; Tazieff, Haroun; Varet, Jacques

doi:10.1086/627797

Cited by 86 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Immediately overlying the Ethiopian peneplain and laterites is a thick section of basaltic traps referred to the Aiba series (Zanettin et al 1978). These basalts are overlain by the bimodal Alaji series in which rhyolites are common (Barberi et al 1972b(Barberi et al , 1975Zanettin 1993). The Aiba and Alaji series and their regional lateral equivalents are the Earth's youngest example of continental flood volcanism (CFV; Baker et al 1996), covering a total area of more than 600 000 km 2 with estimated volumes of >350 000 km 3 (Mohr 1983) to >10 6 km 3 (Courtillot et al 1999).…”

Section: Afar and The Ethiopian Plateaumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early magmatism in the greater Red Sea rift: timing and significance

Bosworth¹,

Stöckli

2016

Can. J. Earth Sci.

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Throughout the greater Red Sea rift system the initial late Cenozoic syn-rift strata and extensional faulting are closely associated with alkali basaltic volcanism. Older stratigraphic units are either pre-rift or deposited during pre-rupture mechanical weakening of the lithosphere. The East African superplume appeared in northeast Africa ϳ46 Ma but was not accompanied by any significant extensional faulting. Continental rifting began in the eastern and central Gulf of Aden at ϳ31-30 Ma coeval with the onset of continental flood volcanism in northern Ethiopia, Eritrea, and western Yemen. Volcanism appeared soon after at Derudeb in southern Sudan and at Harrats Hadan and As Sirat in Saudi Arabia. From ϳ26.5 to 25 Ma a new phase of volcanism began with the intrusion of a dike field reaching southeast of Afar into the Ogaden. At 24-23 Ma dikes were emplaced nearly simultaneously north of Afar and reached over 2000 km into northern Egypt. The dike event linked Afar to the smaller Cairo mini-plume and corresponds to initiation of lithospheric extension and rupture in the central and northern Red Sea and Gulf of Suez. By ϳ21 Ma the dike intrusions along the entire length of the Red Sea were completed. Each episodic enlargement of the greater Red Sea rift system was triggered and facilitated by breakthrough of mantle-derived plumes. However, the absence of any volumetrically significant rift-related volcanism during the main phase of Miocene central and northern Red Sea -Gulf of Suez rifting supports the interpretation that plate-boundary forces likely drove overall separation of Arabia from Africa.Résumé : Dans l'ensemble du grand système du rift de la mer Rouge, les strates initiales syn-rifting et l'extension par failles d'âge cénozoïque tardif sont étroitement associées à un volcanisme basaltique alcalin. Les unités stratigraphiques plus anciennes précèdent la formation du rift ou ont été déposées durant l'affaiblissement mécanique de la lithosphère qui a précédé la rupture. Le superpanache est-africain est apparu dans le nord-est de l'Afrique à ϳ46 Ma, mais n'était pas accompagné d'une importante déformation par failles. Le rifting continental a commencé dans l'est et le centre du golfe d'Aden à ϳ31-30 Ma, en même temps que le début du volcanisme continental de plateau dans le nord de l'Éthiopie, en Érythrée et dans l'ouest du Yémen. Le volcanisme est apparu peu après à Derudeb, dans le sud du Soudan, et aux Harrats Hadan et As Sirat, en Arabie saoudite. À partir de ϳ26,5-25 Ma, une nouvelle phase de volcanisme a débuté avec l'intrusion d'un essaim de dykes allant du sud-est d'Afar jusque dans l'Ogaden. À 24-23 Ma, des dykes ont été mis en place presque simultanément au nord d'Afar et s'étalant sur plus de 2000 km jusque dans le nord de l'Égypte. L'intrusion de dykes a relié Afar au mini-panache plus petit du Caire et correspond au début de la distension et de la rupture lithosphériques dans le centre et le nord de la mer Rouge et le golfe de Suez. À ϳ21 Ma, l'intrusion de dykes sur toute la longueur de ...

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Section: Afar and The Ethiopian Plateaumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The volumetrically minor Oligocene-Miocene boundary volcanic rocks of the Ethiopian plateau and Afar were erupted during active extensional faulting, the oldest well-documented Cenozoic deformation in this region (Barberi et al 1972b(Barberi et al , 1975Zanettin et al 1978;Wolfenden et al 2005;Stab et al 2016). …”

Section: Ethiopian Plateau and Afarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Early magmatism in the greater Red Sea rift: timing and significance

Bosworth¹,

Stöckli

2016

Can. J. Earth Sci.

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“…1a). The three extensional plate boundaries are different in age (Barberi et al, 1972;Cochran, 1981;Manighetti et al, 1998;Wolfenden et al, 2004) and divergence rate (Chu and Gordon, 1998;Bilham et al, 1999) but each tends to extend oblique to its strike (Joffe and Garfunkel, 1978;Boccaletti et al, 1994Boccaletti et al, , 1998Dauteuil et al, 2001;Huchon and Khanbari, 2003). Several studies show that the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden oceanic rifts are propagating on land in Afar (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden rifts have penetrated into Afar where they are now actively opening and propagating through the development of a series of disconnected rift segments (e.g. Barberi et al, 1972;Manighetti et al, 1998). At a smaller scale, deformation in Afar seems to have involved the rotation of at least two microplates (Danakil and Ali Sabieh blocks) sandwiched between the three major plates (Chu and Gordon, 1998;Eagles et al, 2002).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The August 2002 earthquake sequence in north Afar: Insights into the neotectonics of the Danakil microplate

Ayele

Stuart

Bastow

et al. 2007

Journal of African Earth Sciences

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In August 2002, there was high seismic activity in Afar concentrated at the plateau margin of the northern Ethiopian rift east of Mekele, near the western part of the Danakil microplate. The spatial and temporal distributions of this seismic activity over four weeks indicate the NNW propagation of the Gulf of Aden rift across the Afar Depression towards the western Ethiopian plateau. Fault plane solutions for six larger earthquakes from the August 2002 sequence are estimated from moment tensor inversion of local broadband waveform data. The results show only normal faulting on NNW trending and NE dipping faults, which agree with tectonics of the area and distribution of aftershocks. No strike-slip component is observed in any of our fault plane solutions or those of other workers including Harvard CMT solutions in the region. Such motion would be indicative of oblique-slip deformation between the Nubian plate and the Danakil microplate consistent with counter-clockwise rotation of the microplate. Hypocentral depths of well-constrained events are 5-7 km, which is the approximate elastic plate thickness in the Main Ethiopian rift, possibly indicating the depth to the brittle-ductile transition zone in this part of the Afar Depression. The shallowness of the depth estimates agree with the macroseismic reports available from a wide area in northern Ethiopia. Potential future shallow crustal deformation may cause significant loss of human life and damage to property in the densely populated highland region around Mekele unless measures are taken in improving building standards. The b-value for this sequence is estimated to be 0.66 using a least squares fit, while it is 0.67 ± 0.16 from a maximum-likelihood approach. This estimated b-value is low or the frequency of occurrence of relatively larger magnitude events is high indicating that it is a highly stressed region as evidenced by the recent increase of the seismicity in the area.

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“…. These investigations led to a fourfold classification of volcanic features in Afar according to their perceived tectonic association, geomorphology, petrological affinity, and deformation history ; Barberi et al 1971;CNR-CNRS Afar Team 1973; Barberi et al 1974; Barberi et al 1975a; Barberi and Varet 1977). These authors recognised axial ranges of oceanic nature, marginal units on the borders of the Afar Depression dominated by silicic products (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large magnitude silicic volcanism in north Afar: the Nabro Volcanic Range and Ma?alalta volcano

Wiart

Oppenheimer

2004

Bull Volcanol

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Much of the volcanological work carried out in north Afar (Ethiopia and Eritrea) has focused on the nature of Quaternary basaltic volcanic ranges, which have been interpreted by some as incipient oceanic ridges. However, we show here that comparable volumes of silicic magmas have been erupted in the region. In particular, the virtually undocumented Nabro Volcanic Range, which runs NNE for more than 100 km from the margin of the Danakil Depression to the Red Sea coast, has a subaerial volume of the order of 550 km 3 , comparable to the volume of the much better known Erta'Ale axial volcanic range. Nabro volcano itself forms part of an enigmatic double caldera structure with a neighbouring volcano, Mallahle. The twin caldera may have formed simultaneously with the eruption of between 20 and 100 km 3 of ignimbrite, which is readily identified in Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery. This may have been the largest explosive eruption in north Afar, and is certain to have deposited a regionally distributed tephra layer which could in the future be located in distal sections as a stratigraphic marker. An integrated analysis of optical and synthetic aperture radar imagery, digital topographic data, field observations and limited geochemical measurements, permits here descriptions and first order inferences about the structure, stratigraphy and compositions of several major volcanoes of the Afar Triangle, and a reappraisal of their regional significance.

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Evolution of the Danakil Depression (Afar, Ethiopia) in Light of Radiometric Age Determinations

Cited by 86 publications

References 3 publications

Early magmatism in the greater Red Sea rift: timing and significance

Early magmatism in the greater Red Sea rift: timing and significance

The August 2002 earthquake sequence in north Afar: Insights into the neotectonics of the Danakil microplate

Large magnitude silicic volcanism in north Afar: the Nabro Volcanic Range and Ma?alalta volcano

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