Structural Analysis of the Western Afar Margin, East Africa: Evidence for Multiphase Rotational Rifting

The Afar region in East Africa represents a key location to study continental breakup. We present an integrated structural analysis of the Western Afar Margin (WAM) aiming to better understand rifted margin development and the role of plate rotation during rifting. New structural information from remote sensing, fieldwork, and earthquake data sets reveals that the N-S striking WAM is still actively deforming and is characterized by NNW-SSE normal faulting as well as a series of marginal grabens. Seismicity distribution analysis and the first-ever borehole-calibrated sections of this developing passive margin show recent slip concentrated along antithetic faults. Tectonic stress parameters derived from earthquake focal mechanisms reveal different extension directions along the WAM (82°N), in Afar (66°N) and in the Main Ethiopian Rift (108°N). Fault slip analysis along the WAM yields the same extension direction. Combined with GPS data, this shows that current tectonics in Afar is dominated by the local rotation of the Danakil Block, considered to have occurred since 11 Ma. Earlier stages of Afar development (since 31–25 Ma) were most likely related to the large-scale rotation of the Arabian plate. Various authors have proposed scenarios for the evolution of the WAM. Any complete model should consider, among other factors, the multiphase tectonic history and antithetic fault activity of the margin. The findings of this study are not only relevant for a better understanding of the WAM but also provide insights into the role of multiphase rotational extension during rifting and passive margin formation in general.</p

Stratigraphy and evolution og the trachy-rhyolitic volcanism of the Senafe Area (Eastern Eritrean Plateau).

The Senafe area reveals a pile of stratoid volcanic rocks ("Senafe" ignimbrite), of considerable extent and thickness, which are the products of the first volcanic event which took place in this sector, close to the upper margin of the Afar escarpment. The Senafe ignimbrite is composed prevalently of trachyte with differing degrees of alkalinity: trachy-dacite of transitional series, and trachyte s.s. of mildly alkaline series. K/Ar radiometric measurements carried out on three samples give ages ranging between 21 and 23 Ma (Lower Miocene) and show that the Senafe ignimbrite with transitional character is an extension of the Serae rhyolite of the Central Eritrean Plateau, and may also be correlated with the Miocene Alaji rhyolite of the Central Ethiopian Plateau. In contrast, the more alkaline ignimbrite shows good correlations with the trachyte emitted by the Miocene Termaber alkaline central volcanoes of Ethiopia. It is noted that, in the course of the Miocene volcanism in Eritrea, the volumetric ratio between associated basalt and ignimbrite diminishes from west to east, i.e., approaching the Afar escarpment. The stratoid volcanic rocks are injected by thick trachytic and rhyolitic dykes. As radiometric measurements on them could not be performed, their age is unknown, but it is probably more recent than that of the injected ignimbrite, according to Merla and Minucci [Merla, G., Minucci, E., 1938. Missione geologica nel Tigrai. In: La serie dei terreni, vol. 1. Regia Accademia d'Italia, Centro Studi per l'Africa Orientale Italiana, Rome, Italy, pp. 1-362] for similar dykes and domes occurring in the Adwa-Axum area (Tigrai, Ethiopia), not far from Senafe. A section is devoted to the dyke feeders of the Eritrean and Adwa-Axum volcanism

New radiometric age of volcanic rocks in the Central Eritrean Plateau (form Asmara to Adi Quala): consideration on stratigraphy and correlation.

New radiometric data have recently been acquired on basalt and rhyolite sampled at various levels of the volcanic sequence occurring in the central Eritrean plateau, confirming the stratigraphic reconstruction suggested in a previous paper [Zanettin, B., Bellieni, G., Justin Visentin, E., Haile, T., 1999. The volcanic rocks of the Eritrean plateau: stratigraphy and evolution. Acta Volcanologica 11(1), 183-193]. New considerations indicate the tholeiitic, not alkaline, nature of the Asmara basalt. Doubts about the relative age of the Aiba/Alaji and Asmara basalts have now been clarified: they are, at least partly, coeval (about 30 Ma old). The Serae rhyolite intercalated in the Adi Ugri basalt turns out to be about 24 Ma old, like the more abundant ignimbrite outcropping in the Senafe area, of which it is the westernmost extension. Its age confirms that it does not correspond to the trachyte intercalated in the Oligocene stratoid basalt of the Adwa-Axum area (where the Adi Ugri basalt probably also occurs, intercalated with the Serae trachyte and rhyolite). The upper part of the Adi Ugri basalt is 22 Ma old (an age consistent with the finding of a Deinotherium tooth). The radiometric age of these rocks also confirms already indicated correlations between Eritrean and Ethiopian volcanic formations