Red Sea Rift

The Red Sea Rift is a mid-ocean ridge along a divergent boundary between the African and Arabian tectonic plates, beginning where it meets the Dead Sea Transform fault system and ending to the south where it joins the Aden Ridge and the East African Rift at the Afar triple junction. Major rifting began during the early to middle Eocene epoch, and substantial seafloor spreading followed in the late Eocene and early Oligocene, after which a roughly 30 million year quiet phase saw thick evaporite deposits accumulate before spreading resumed about five million years ago. Magnetic anomalies on the seafloor show the Red Sea spreading at about 1 centimeter a year today, driven by the African and Arabian plates rotating apart at rates of roughly 0.93 and 1.16 degrees per million years.