Glacier-like flows of Miocene evaporites imaged with sonar in the central Red Sea

What is it about?

Evaporites deposited in the Miocene in the Red Sea have been disrupted by rifting between African and Arabia. The loss of lateral constraint caused by the rifting and subsidence have allowed the evaporites to flow under gravity, due to weak rheology of their halite component. In this article, we present multibeam sonar data collected in 2005 showing the evaporites invading a volcanic spreading centre in the central Red Sea, forming rounded flow fronts much like other kinds of viscous flows. Dissolution of the halite is prevented by a ~200 m thick layer of hemipelagic mud overlying the evaporites. The density of that overlying layer is similar to halite, so these deposits do not form diapirs as extensively as do deposits in more typical continental margin settings overlain by denser terrigenous sediment.

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Photo by Sofia Truppel on Unsplash

Photo by Sofia Truppel on Unsplash