Crustal Strain and Stress Fields in Egypt from Geodetic and Seismological Data

Abstract

The comparison between crustal stress and surface strain azimuthal patterns has provided new insights into several complex tectonic settings worldwide. Here, we performed such a comparison for Egypt taking into account updated datasets of seismological and geodetic observations. In north-eastern Egypt, the stress field shows a fan-shaped azimuthal pattern with a WNW–ESE orientation on the Cairo region, which progressively rotated to NW–SE along the Gulf of Aqaba. The stress field shows a prevailing normal faulting regime, however, along the Sinai/Arabia plate boundary it coexists with a strike–slip faulting one (σ1 ≅ σ2 > σ3), while on the Gulf of Suez, it is characterized by crustal extension occurring on near-orthogonal directions (σ1 > σ2 ≅ σ3). On the Nile Delta, the maximum horizontal stress (SHmax) pattern shows scattered orientations, while on the Aswan region, it has a WNW–ESE strike with pure strike–slip features. The strain-rate field shows the largest values along the Red Sea and the Sinai/Arabia plate boundary. Crustal stretching (up to 40 nanostrain/yr) occurs on these areas with WSW–ENE and NE–SW orientations, while crustal contraction occurs on northern Nile Delta (10 nanostrain/yr) and offshore (~35 nanostrain/yr) with E–W and N–S orientations, respectively. The comparison between stress and strain orientations over the investigated area reveals that both patterns are near-parallel and driven by the same large-scale tectonic processes.