Global and Regional Geodynamic Context

When looking at any picture or map of the area located the most convincing example of continental drift. However,
between Africa and Arabia, the eyes are immediately drawn Wegener’s theories did not convince the geological main-
to a singular place where several peculiarities arise (Figs. 1.1 stream at that time, and Cloos (1913), more influential in
and 1.2): German geological society, was able to show that vertical
rather that horizontal movements could explain rift system
1. The sharp change in direction of the Red Sea (trending development. Afar was taken by Cloos as a key example.
NNW) with respect to the Gulf of Aden (trending ENE), For him, the “Danakil triangle” jutting out into the Red Sea
leaving a sharp “corner” at the level of Yemen. destroys the congruency with Yemen, making it difficult for
2. The nearly parallel coast on both sides of the Red Sea Wegener, who objected that the area was mainly basaltic, not
and the Gulf of Aden which were interpreted as previ- granito-gneissic. However, at that time, the idea that ocean
ously joined by A. Ortelius (Anvers 1596), and identified floors could be basaltic was not part of theory, and Wegener
as resulting from “tensional forces” by the Australian lost the argument.
geologist E. Suess in 1891, that is, prior to Wegener’s The term “rift” was popularised worldwide by the British
theory of continental drift (1912). explorer John Walter Gregory who published the classical
3. The elevated plateaus surrounding the area on both sides, book “The Great Rift Valley” in 1896. He also attributed the
a striking feature emphasised by Cloos (1913, 1939), a formation of the rift valley to extensional forces that induced
fixist who objected to Wegener’s theory. both the continental up-doming and the symmetrical faulting
4. The presence south of the Red Sea of a depression of of the rift. As a result, the EARV is also called “the Gregory
broad triangular shape, that is the Afar depression, Rift” by the English speaking community. One should,
depicted as early as 2.400 years ago by Heterodotus however, remember that the concept of doming and faulting
(Falcon et al. 1970). was proposed a century earlier by Elie de Beaumont (1827)
5. The East African Rift Valley (EARV), trending NNW, for the Rhine graben, and was further developed by German
bounded by elevated plateaus on both sides, joining the and Austrian scientists for other parts of the world. However,
Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in Afar, as if “funnelling the term “rift” finally prevailed in the international literature,
out” (as interpreted by Mohr 1967). particularly after plate tectonics selected it for accreting
margins, whereas the term “graben” became limited to
Whereas the Afar area, also called Danakil or even Eri- extensive tectonic faulting.
trea, was long, considered by many observers to be a striking Carey (1958) was among the few advocate of continental
earth feature, A. Wegener, basing his work on the obser- drift and postulated a mechanism for the opening of the Red
vations of his colleague geographer A. Supan, and following Sea by tensional forces brought by convection currents in the
several geographers’ and geologists’ observations (including mantle, and the theory was supported by Swartz and Arden
those of A. Ortelius and E. Suess) (Fig. 1.3), was the first to (1960) who proposed a time scale for the rift opening
incorporate it in a global Earth model and take it as one of between Africa and Arabia based on geological evidence.

© Springer International Publishing AG 2018 3

J. Varet, Geology of Afar (East Africa), Regional Geology Reviews,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60865-5_1
4 1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context

Fig. 1.1 NTM map of the African continent showing the Red Sea, the geographic and geodynamic features meet. Elevated plateaus of Nubia,
Gulf of Aden, the East African Rift Valley and the location of the Afar Somalia and Yemen surround these three rifts
depression, of triangular shape, in the area where these three major
1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context 5

Fig. 1.2 More detailed topographic map of the Red Sea Gulf of Aden showing the connection with the northern termination of the East African
Rift Valley in the Afar triangle

They considered that the Arabian continent was subject to coasts start to converge towards the Bab-el-Mandeb strait
compressional forces to the north and tensional stresses (Fig. 1.5).
developed to the south. They proposed that Arabia moved Vine (1966) applied the theory proposed by Vine and
away from Africa in two steps, the Gulf of Aden starting to Matthews (1963) to the Red Sea data to interpret the mag-
open in the Miocene, and the Red Sea and Afar Rift in the netic symmetrical lineations about the ridge axis, and found
Eocene and Oligocene. Their model identified four blocks: 1 cm/year on each limb (for the axial trough only). Gravity
Nubia, Somalia, Arabia and Sinai (Fig. 1.4). data were also collected and indicated the presence of
Cousteau and co-workers showed the existence of an magnetic dikes forming a veneer between the bottom of the
axial trough as referred to later by Drake and Girdler, with rift and the top (Fig. 1.6).
bathymetric profiles across the Red Sea (Tazieff 1952; Even at a broad scale of 1/25,000,000 the geological map
Cousteau et al. 1953). In 1958 the first magnetic measure- of the world issued by the UNESCO/CGMW (second edi-
ments were made in the Red Sea by Drake and Girdler tion, 2000; see Fig. 1.7) clearly makes apparent the geo-
(1964), completed in 1959 and 1961 by Allan et al. (1964). logical environment of the Afar triangle. The disappearance
It was shown that the axial trough followed the sinuous of the Red Sea axial trough towards the south is easily
coastlines and extended south as far as 15°N, north of visible at the level of Afar to the north as well as the merge
Hanish and Zukur Islands, where it disappears where the of the axis of the Gulf of Aden into Afar to the east (in violet
6 1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context

Fig. 1.3 Afar and East African Rift Valley according to Suess (1891), Supan (1899) and Gregory (1920)

and deep blue). Also visible is the East African Rift running It is apparent, even from this world map, that the active
through Ethiopia, Kenya and down south to Mozambique (in oceanic spreading axis of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden
orange, colour in which Plio-Pleistocene volcanic products do not pass through the Bal-el-Mandeb strait but have to be
from the rift are represented). Some recent basaltic units are searched for in Afar, where the map shows faults as well as
also observed in Arabia, both in the Saudis Harrats and in volcanic and seismic activity but is not detailed enough to
Yemen. Both normal and transverse faultings are shown as show how the three rift systems operate within Afar.
red lines on land and offshore and major earthquakes and Although at a similarly large scale, the map of the seis-
active volcanic centres are also pictured. The Miocene for- micity of the world (only earthquakes with a magnitude
mations are shown in yellow, including the sediments in the above 5 are reported) around the Arabian plate and sur-
basins and the volcanic traps of the Ethiopian, Somalian and rounding regions (Fig. 1.8) clearly shows the earthquakes
Yemenite plateaus. The Mesozoic sediments are mapped in pattern along the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea Axis as well
pale green and the crystalline basement in brown. One can as along the EARV. It also quite clearly indicates that the
see that the whole pre-Miocene sequence, including the seismicity develops in Afar, entering from the south through
basement and its Mesozoic cover, was lifted up on both sides the Gulf of Zula and from the east through the Gulf of
along the three rift margins, the sedimentary basins generally Tadjourah, whereas the Bab-el-Mandeb strait appears inac-
outcropping away from these structures. tive between the Hanish Islands and Obock. The seismic
1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context 7

Fig. 1.4 Reconstitution of the Afro-Arabian continent in the involved in the same process, and its floor is of similar composition to
pre-Oligocene according to Schwarz and Arden (1960). Although the those of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden of a rising mantle by Drake and
spreading mechanism is not yet fully explained, Afar is seen as Girdler in 1964 (Fig. 1.6)
8 1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context

Fig. 1.5 The southern portion of the Red Sea contoured by A.S. of Afar, the axial valley is less deep when hitting Zebayr Island and
Laughton (100 fathom intervals) from data available up to May 1968 disappears at 14°N North of Zukur and Hanish islands. (Reproduced
from the Hydrographic Ministry of Defence (British Navy). At the level from Derakhshani and Farhoudi 2005)
1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context 9

Fig. 1.6 Synthetic interpretation of the Red Sea floor and axial trough by Drake and Girdler (1964)

activity north of the Hanish-Zukur Islands shows that the Later studies showed that the spreading was not neces-
portion of the southern axis of the Red Sea located between sarily continuous in the Gulf of Aden, but was rather char-
the Zubair and Hanish Islands is still active, in parallel with acterised by stop and go, with the start of oceanic spreading at
northern Afar. This delineates a block which corresponds to anomaly 5c (Fig. 1.10), that is, 16 million years ago (Cochran
the “Danakil Alps”, limited to the south by the Dobi-Biddu 1981) and a period of transition from rift to drift between 21
transverse NE-SW alignment characterised by large calderas and 17 million years ago (Bosworth et al. 2005). It was also
(including Nabro) and basaltic fissure fields aligned with the made clear after Laughton’s work that the western extremity
similar volcanic vents forming Hanish Island (as seen on of the Gulf of Aden (west of 45°) opened later. The Shukra al
Fig. 1.9, satellite image on the left). Sheik Discontinuity was later shown to mark the separation
The first charts of the bathymetry and the magnetic between the early Gulf of Aden (with oceanic floor 16 million
anomaly field obtained by Laughton et al. (1970)—together years ago) and the western extremity (Tadjourah trench)
with other data—enabled the evolutionary history of the where the spreading began later, eight million years ago in the
Gulf of Aden to be determined. These authors have shown Tadjourah trench and 3–1 million years ago in the Gulf of
that the theory of sea floor spreading satisfactorily accounts Tadjourah (Richard and Varet 1979).
for the observed features of the Shaba Ridge over the past It appears, as a consequence, that since eight million years
10 million years. Evidence of spreading rates in the direction ago, oceanic spreading does not occur any more in the
of the fracture zones were shown to vary from 0.9 to 1.1 cm southern section of the Red Sea—that is, the Bab-el-Manded
per year per limb. Between the initial creation of the Gulf strait between the Hanish Islands and the Tadjourah trench—
and 10 million years ago, the evolution was shown to be less but eventually in Afar itself. This is confirmed by present day
certain, although the geophysical evidence indicated that the seismic activity which concentrates in Afar, the Red Sea and
crustal structure of the Gulf outside the Sheba Ridge is also the Gulf of Aden trough, but is nearly absent in this south-
oceanic. ernmost segment of the Red Sea, as shown in Fig. 1.10.
10 1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context

Fig. 1.7 Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and East African rifts surrounding, as seen from the Geological Map of the World (second edition,
DGGM/CGMW, Paris, 2000)
1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context 11

Fig. 1.8 Map of the seismicity (earthquakes over 5 in magnitude) of the Arabian plate and surrounding regions including Owen Fracture Zone
and Calrsberg Ridge (after Kanbari 2000)

Fig. 1.9 Hanish and Zukur Islands in the Red Sea at 14°N; on the extend north of the islands but disappears south of them. One also
right: from Hydrographic Office, U S Navy, 1940; on the left Google observes on the Erytrean shoreline the basaltic fissural fields of Dubbi
satellite imagery. All islands clearly show a NW trend corresponding to that relate to the set of calderas of Bidu and Nabro, also aligned along
the direction of the fissures that fed the basaltic hyacloclastite and the same transverse direction
scoria cones and lava flows, transverse to the Red Sea Rift that does
12 1 Global and Regional Geodynamic Context

Fig. 1.10 Structural map of the Gulf of Aden (from Bosworth et al. 2005), with simplified geological maps of Yemen and northern Somalia,
showing the fractures zones (SSD = Shukra al Sheik Discontinuity) and magnetic anomalies up to 5c (16 million years ago) east from SSD

Sea, Gulf od Aden and Ethiopia Rift Junction. Phil Trans R Soc
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