St. John's Island (Red Sea): a new geophysical model and its implications for the emplacement of ultramafic rocks in fracture zones and at continental margins

Abstract

New gravity and magnetic data from the northern Red Sea reveal the extent of the large gravity anomaly (164 mgal) and the presence of significant magnetic anomalies over St. John's Island. Spectral transformation and three-dimensional potential-field modelling delineate the surface configuration and vertical extent of the causative body and the enormous density contrast required (1.2 g/cm 3) suggests that it is composed of unserpentinised peridotite (density 3.4 g/cm 3) to a depth of at least 8 km. St. John's Island is uniquely located, not only at a passive continental margin but also within a fracture zone at the transition from plate separation by seafloor spreading to extension by lithospheric attenuation. This precludes several suggested mechanisms for the emplacement of ultramafic bodies in fracture zones. Thermal contraction, serpentinite diapirism and changes in the poles of rotation do not seem possible mechanisms in this tectonic environment and the emplacement is most probably related to the spreading readjustment necessary to create a continent-to-continent fracture zone. A post-Mesozoic age of emplacement, associated with the onset of continental rifting and the rejuvenation of a pre-existing continental fracture, seems most probable.