Fault propagation and climatic control of sedimentation on the Ghoubbet Rift Floor: insights from the Tadjouraden cruise in the western Gulf of Aden

Abstract

A detailed geophysical survey of the Ghoubbet Al Kharab (Djibouti) clarifies the small‐scale morphology of the last submerged rift segment of the propagating Aden ridge before it enters the Afar depression. The bathymetry reveals a system of antithetic normal faults striking N130°E, roughly aligned with those active along the Asal rift. The 3.5 kHz sub‐bottom profiler shows how the faults cut distinct layers within the recent, up to 60 m thick, sediment cover on the floor of the basin. A large volcanic structure, in the centre of the basin, the ‘Ghoubbet’ volcano, separates two sedimentary flats. The organization of volcanism and the planform of faulting, with en echelon subrifts along the entire Asal–Ghoubbet rift, appear to confirm the westward propagation of this segment of the plate boundary. Faults throughout the rift have been active continuously for the last 8400 yr, but certain sediment layers show different offsets. The varying offsets of these layers, dated from cores previously retrieved in the southern basin, imply Holocene vertical slip rates of 0.3–1.4 mm yr−1 and indicate a major decrease in sedimentation rate after about 6000 yr BP, and a redistribution of sediments in the deepest troughs during the period that preceded that change.