Age and Rate of the Sinistral Movement along the Dead Sea Rift

Abstract

THE fact that quantitative results from unrelated earth sciences confirm and complement each other is a significant success of the continental drift hypothesis. The results of geophysical and oceanographical research on the age and rate of opening of the Red Sea are compared here with the geological and palaeogeographical indications of the component of this movement along the Dead Sea Rift. The interpretation of the geomagnetic anomalies in the median trench of the Red Sea is supposed to show¹ that the rate of opening of the Red Sea at latitude 16° is approximately 1 cm yr⁻¹ during the last 3–4 million years. New data on the sinistral movement along the Dead Sea Rift which are presented here show a similar rate of movement of the Arabian block northwards relative to the Israel–Sinai block during the Pliocene–Pleistocene. This movement was preceded by a period of standstill during the Miocene, which may correspond to the pause in the expansion of the mid-ocean ridges 10 million years ago (refs. 2 and 3).