ABSTRACT
The Global Salt Cycle (GSC) model is based on the Wilson Cycle concept and predicts that deep subduction of seawater-laden oceanic crust leads to dehydration, with the expulsion of saline fluids that migrate into the overlying mantle wedge. This may result in mantle upwelling and delamination in the lower crust, which eventually leads to crustal uplift, lithospheric, and continental break-up (failure). The upwelling may also cause the expulsion of saline vapours, brines, and melts that migrate in hydrothermal systems towards the surface through newly formed faults and fractures. The Red Sea area has gone through all the geological stages for this to happen, and it is concluded that the Red Sea, the East African Rift (EAR) and the Afar Triple Junction are in different stages of the GSC processes. Thus, they produce large volumes of salts, both on and below the surface. Observed salt features in the Red Sea area include seismically opaque “diapirs”, “walls”, or “rises”, and thick-layered salt deposits associated with diapirs and volcanoes. In addition, mobile ‘carpets of salt flows’ are observed at the ocean’s flanks, and abundant collapse features are observed along the Red Sea floor. These features are associated with high heat-flow regions, including submarine volcanism and hydrothermal processes in the Red Sea.
