Abstract
I WOULD like to comment on some of the assumptions and results of a recent letter by McKenzie et al.1. They reconstruct the pre-movement position of Arabia and Africa by fitting the two coast lines of the Red Sea, assuming that the entire space between the coasts is occupied by newly formed oceanic crust. This assumption ignores the existence of the Danakil horst, which consists of continental crust (Pre-Cambrian, Jurassic) and which is some 80 km wide, in between these two coast lines in the southern Red Sea depression. It seems impossible to close the gap of the Red Sea without leaving the space required for this continental block.
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McKenzie, P. D., Davies, D., and Molnar, P., Nature, 226, 243 (1970).
Freund, R., Geol. Mag., 102, 189 (1965).
Bullard, E. C., Everett, J. E., and Smith, A. G., Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., A, 258, 41 (1965).
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FREUND, R. Plate Tectonics of the Red Sea and East Africa. Nature 228, 453 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/228453a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/228453a0
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