Spectral analyses, geology and petrology of the Gulf of Suez rift-related Oligo-Miocene basalts at Abu Zenima area, west central Sinai, Egypt

Abstract

The initial phase of the Gulf of Suez rifting in the late Oligocene was accompanied by the eruption of continental basaltic magmas, which continued to the early Miocene. Within the rift zone at Abu Zenima area, west-central Sinai, several km-scale Oligo-Miocene basaltic exposures in the form of dykes, sills and lava flows intruded/extruded the Phanerozoic sedimentary successions. These basaltic outcrops were successfully discriminated from their country rocks by remote sensing techniques, using the Landsat-8 dataset. The basalts are evolved tholeiitic, Ti-rich varieties and exhibit narrow compositional range with absence of any felsic counterparts, suggesting equilibrium crystallization process in their evolutions rather than fractional crystallization mechanism. Simulations of equilibrium crystallization process and evolution trajectories of these basalts have been modeled.

Keywords

• Oligo-Miocene
• Basalts
• Rift-related
• Abu Zenima