Abstract
The Gulf of Aqaba transform plate boundary is a source of destructive teleseismic earthquakes. Seismicity is concentrated in the central sub-basin and decreases to both the north and south. Although principally a strike-slip plate boundary, the faulted margins of the Gulf display largely dip-slip extensional movement and accompanying footwall uplift. We have constrained rates of this uplift by measurements of elevated Pleistocene coral terraces. In particular the terrace that formed during the last interglacial (~125 ka) is found discontinuously along the length of the Gulf at elevations of 3 to 26 m. Global sea level was ~7 m higher than today at 125 ka indicating net maximum tectonic uplift of ~19 m with an average rate of ~0.015 cm/yr. Uplift has been greatest adjacent to the central sub-basin and like the seismicity decreases to the north and south. We suggest that the present pattern of a seismically active central region linked to more aseismic areas in the north and south has therefore persisted for at least the past 125 kyr. Consequently the potential for future destructive earthquakes in the central Gulf is greater than in the sub-basins to the north and south.
Highlights
Much of the Gulf of Aqaba region is relatively unpopulated and with little infrastructure development
Most of the teleseismic events recorded for the Gulf of Aqaba-Dead Sea transform boundary have yielded strike-slip fault solutions whenever sufficient data have been available
The two largest events of the swarm (ML = 5.8 and 5.6) were principally dip-slip (Fig. 4). The epicenters of both of these earthquakes are located on NNE-SSW striking segments of the Arabia coastline adjacent to the Dakar and Aragonese Deeps. This is the general orientation of the Gulf of Aqaba–Dead Sea transform boundary and such structures would usually be associated with sinistral strike-slip movement
Summary
U-series dated MIS5e coral terraces in the southern Gulf of Suez lie as much as 18.5 m above sea level with net tectonic uplift of ~11.5 m (~0.01 cm/yr)[23] This uplift has been shown to be the flexural response to movement on individual extensional fault segments with active lengths of a few tens of kilometers[22, 23]. Seven samples from the Saudi Gulf of Aqaba margin produced Uranium-series dates that are clearly associated with the MIS5e last interglacial sea-level high-stand (Table 2). These are in agreement with the results of previous studies along this margin[32, 44, 46]. These attributes make them readily discernible from the MIS5e terraces in the field
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