New constraints on the Nubia–Sinai–Dead Sea fault crustal motion

Abstract

The subduction between Nubia and Eurasia and activities along the Red Sea, Gulf of Suez and Gulf of Aqaba may control the surface deformation in the north-eastern corner of the African continent. Using very few GPS stations in the Egyptian region, previous studies indicate northward motion of northern Nubia with respect to Eurasia of about 5mm/yr (McClusky et al., 2000; Reilinger et al., 2006; Mahmoud et al., 2005). In order to constrain better the movement rate of northern Nubia and interaction between Nubia, Eurasia and Arabia plates, we are using for the first time 16 permanent GPS stations in combination with 47 non-permanent stations covering Egypt for the period 2006–2012. This paper extends the previous study (Saleh and Becker, 2013) by processing in addition to the Egyptian stations 86 permanent stations belonging to three different tectonic plates. This led to a considerably better coverage of the Sinai–Dead Sea region. This work intends to be the first comprehensive analysis of the permanent stations in combination with the various campaign data in selected regions of special interest in Egypt. The GPS sites show a relative motion between Nubia and Eurasia of about 6.5±1mm/yr, which increased toward the Hellenic trench, 8.2±0.8mm/yr in Sinai peninsula, 14.2±1.4mm/yr in the north of Arabian plate and 22.3±0.7mm/yr in eastern and central Turkey. The strain computation indicates high strain rates, where the deformation is strongly localized along the Dead Sea fault, and low to moderate strain rate in the Gulf of Suez and southern Sinai.