Red Sea

MARGINS Education and Planning Workshop:

Rupturing of Continental Lithosphere in the Red Sea/Gulf of Suez

to be held March 17-23, 2001, Sharm-el-Sheikh, Sinai, Egypt

Red Sea Workshop info - abstracts, schedule

Red Sea Workshop - list of participants

Photo album from the workshop

Announcement:

MARGINS Education and Planning Workshop:

Rupturing of Continental Lithosphere in the Red Sea/Gulf of Suez

to be held March 17-23, 2001, Sharm-el-Sheikh, Sinai, Egypt.

Convened by: James Cochran, Michael Steckler and William Bosworth

A MARGINS workshop on Rupturing of the Continental Lithosphere as applied to the northern and central Red Sea/Gulf of Suez will be held March 17-23, 2001 in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. Participants in the workshop will examine the application and implications of crustal faulting, strain partitioning, and magma emplacement at a site of active continental rifting where there is a transition to initial seafloor spreading in the northern and central Red Sea/Gulf of Suez region. The workshop will include scientists from the US, the countries bordering the Red Sea, and other international experts. The meeting will include a 2-day field trip along the Gulf of Suez in the Sinai Peninsula to enable the participants to examine rift tectonics and stratigraphy, and allow for informal interaction between participants. Participants will then continue to Sharm-el-Sheikh at the southern tip of Sinai for a 2 1/2-day workshop, The meeting will summarize past and present research on rifting and rifting problems in northern and central Red Sea/Gulf of Suez. In addition, plans for coordinated research and an implementation strategy will be explored at the workshop by the participants in order to provide the foundation and opportunity to submit competitive proposals to the MARGINS 2 November 2001 Request-for-proposals, even if they were not originally familiar with the study region. The workshop format will focus on a series of thematic sessions in with keynote speakers and discussion and poster sessions in which the participants can describe work in progress, or the work in an early planning stage. Finally there will be a general discussion of what types of modeling experiments and field observations are necessary to address the key research problems and thematic topics presented below.

Key research problems to be discussed during the workshop include:

• mechanisms that allow continental lithosphere to be deformed and the processes that control the evolution of the rift architecture, the nature of transitional crust, and the transition from continental rifting to seafloor spreading;
• horizontal, vertical, and temporal distribution and partitioning of continental extension;
• extension style that leads to magma production and distribution and the role of fluid fluxes in facilitating extension and extension style;
• relationship between extension style and distribution to the stratigraphic evolution of the rift basin.

Participants will need to arrive in Cairo on Saturday, March 17 and depart on Saturday, March 24. The group will depart for two days of field trips on March 18 and 19 that will concentrate on the rift geometry and processes of the eastern Gulf of Suez. We will stay at Ras Sudr during this time and introductory overview talks will take place during the evening. On March 20, we will travel south to Sharm-el-Sheikh, with addition field stops along the way, for the 2.5 day workshop. Please note that the fieldtrip is an integral part of the overall MARGINS workshop. We will return to Cairo on Friday March 23 for a final workshop dinner.

Applications to attend the workshop should be submitted to the MARGINS Office no later than January 24, 2001. Funds to cover lodging, most meals and travel costs are available. Applicants should send an e-mail message to the MARGINS Office containing (1) their address, (2) a short description of their research, and (3) a one-page abstract for the workshop.

Inquiries may be addressed to the MARGINS Office (FAX:1-845-365-8156) or directly to the conveners; Jim Cochran, Michael Steckler, or Bill Bosworth.