Recent kinematics of the tectonic plates surrounding the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden

A New Southern North Atlantic Isochron Map: Insights Into the Drift of the Iberian Plate Since the Late Cretaceous

“…From the 3 aeromagnetic tracks and the ~400 ship‐magnetic tracks in the NCEI database for the southern North Atlantic, ~120 magnetic profiles have been extracted (Figure ). The magnetic profiles were interpreted using Magan (Schettino, ), a software tool for the analysis of marine magnetic anomalies, the effectiveness of which has been demonstrated in other case‐studies (e.g., Schettino et al, ; Schettino & Macchiavelli, ).…”

“…Therefore, an accurate digitization of these lineaments, together with the determination of magnetic anomaly crossings, is required for a reliable estimation of rotation poles. Because in the southern North Atlantic a consistent set of fracture zones can be hardly determined, we reduced the significant uncertainty in the Euler pole determination using a method that represents an evolution of the techniques used by Schettino et al () to constraint the Red Sea kinematics. That method tried to overcome the scarcity of well‐defined transform faults and fracture zones by integrating several sources of data.…”

“…Synthetic lineaments were constructed “by interactively fitting sets of small circle arcs about test Euler poles to local kinematic indicators identified in the Red Sea and along the Arabian margin” (Schettino et al, ). However, in the present case study the kinematic indicators considered by Schettino et al () (e.g., local azimuth of synrift transcurrent fault or alignment of transform faults with continental strike‐slip faults) could not be used, and therefore, a new approach was developed. We started using only magnetic anomaly crossings integrating them with synthetic fracture zones derived from the crossings themselves.…”

“…In this paper, we overcome the limitations related to the scarcity of fracture zones and the short length of the magnetic lineations by using a new iterative method that allows us to obtain an accurate and reliable rotation model without incorporating unreliable directional data. This method represents an evolution of techniques that have been used in the study of Red Sea kinematics (Chu & Gordon, ; Schettino et al, ). To better understand the kinematics of Iberia relative to NW Africa and Europe, we analyze 3 aeromagnetic tracks and ~400 ship‐magnetic tracks of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) database (Figure S1 in the supporting information).…”

Kinematics and deformation of the southern Red Sea region from GPS observations

“…It is the only place on Earth allowing for inland observations of all evolution stages of a divergent plate boundary: from the continental rifting to the onset of an oceanic ridge (e.g., Wolfenden et al 2005;Stab et al 2016;Varet 2018). This makes the region a unique location to study divergent plate kinematics and processes of microplate formation in a young and active triple junction (Eagles et al 2002;Schettino et al 2016;Doubre et al 2017).…”