THE ORIGIN OF THE DEAD-SEA RIFT

The Dead Sea rift is considered to be a prate boundary of the transfor m type. Several key questions regarding its structure and evolution ar e: Does sea floor spreading activity propagate from the Red Sea into t he Dead Sea rift? Did rifting activity start simultaneously along the entire length of the Dead Sea rift, or did it propagate from several c entres? Why did the initial propagation of the Red Sea into the Gulf o f Suez stop and an opening of the Gulf of flat start? Using crustal st ructure data from north Africa and the eastern Mediterranean and appro ximating the deformation of the lithosphere by a deformation of a mult ilayer thin sheet that overlies an inviscid half-space, the regional s tress field in this region was calculated. Using this approach it is p ossible to take into account variations of lithospheric thickness and the transition from a continental to an oceanic crust. By application of a strain-dependent visco-elastic model of a solid with damage it is possible to describe the process of creation and evolution of narrow zones of strain rate localization, corresponding to the high value of the damage parameter, i.e. fault zones. Mathematical simulation of the plate motion and faulting process suggests that the Dead Sea rift was created as a result of a simultaneous propagation of two different tr ansforms. One propagated from the Red Sea through the Gulf of Elat to the north. The other transform started at the collision zone in Turkey and propagated to the south.