Gulf of Suez Rift

The Gulf of Suez Rift is a continental rift zone that was tectonically active from about 28 million years ago in the Late Oligocene until roughly 5 million years ago at the end of the Miocene, when it formed a direct continuation of the Red Sea Rift. Its opening was driven by the anticlockwise rotation of the Arabian Plate relative to the African Plate, and it now forms a strongly segmented structure of alternating half grabens separated by accommodation zones, floored by ancient Precambrian basement of the Arabian-Nubian Shield beneath younger sedimentary layers. When mid-Miocene breakup shifted active seafloor spreading to the Red Sea itself and displacement moved onto the Dead Sea Transform, the Gulf of Suez Rift became tectonically inactive, but its sedimentary basins now host more than 120 known hydrocarbon fields and remain an important natural laboratory for studying how rift basins develop.