Marine geologic evidence for a Levantine-Sinai plate, a new piece of the Mediterranean puzzle

Marine geophysical data recorded offshore Egypt illustrate the presence of an active fault belt, trending N145 degrees E, that obliquely transects the eastern Nile deep-sea fan, This belt, more than 150 km long, consists of a series of linear transtensive faults, with an apparent right-lateral horiz ontal component. These fault zones bound thick-sediment-filled grabens wher e linear salt ridges and diapirs represent likely Messinian salt reactive r esponse to regional transcurrent geodynamics. We infer that this tectonic b elt might correspond to an offshore extension of the Gulf of Suez rift syst em. If our hypothesis is correct, this fault belt might represent the weste rn boundary of a Levantine-Sinai microplate, locked between the major Arabi a and Africa plates and the Anatolian-Aegean microplate.