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 - General Discussion - Introduction to the general discussion

Abstract

The meeting has promoted a valuable exchange of ideas between field geologists, geologists engaged in petroleum exploration in and around the Red Sea, and geophysicists who have undertaken land, airborne and marine surveys. The results are of fundamental interest in several fields. The ancient crystalline rocks, discussed by Brown and Beydoun, revealed little to suggest a control of the Red Sea geosuture by Precambrian structures. The old eugeosynclinal trough in Arabia perhaps trends N 30° W, but Brown had been unwilling to assign a direction to the postulated miogeosynclinal trough. The early sediments had been extensively annealed by metamorphism and by igneous intrusion on a large scale. It did not appear that an obvious case for the location of either the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden along a pre-existing line of crustal weakness could be made out from the surface geology, though the case of the Dead Sea rift may be different.