A Trip to the Red Sea

After a long and boring flight I have finally made it to Safaga, Egypt, the first stop on my tectonic tour!  In the morning I met my tour guide, John, and the other people I will be spending the next two weeks with. We are all similar ages so I am sure we will have a great time touring the world together. This morning, we ate a delicious breakfast and headed out on a fishing boat into the Red Sea.

According to John the Red Sea lies at 27 deg 01 min 6.31 sec N and 34 deg 38 min 50.43 sec E and is right on the border of the Arabian and the African tectonic plates. The two plates have been moving away from each other for millions of years which has created the Red Sea. John said this is called a divergent boundary and it worked like this:

Mantel pushes up against the thick crust of the earth creating a slight bulge in which cracks form as the two plates pull apart. As a rift forms, the crust on either side of it slides down to fill the opening rift and creates a valley. In the early stages of this process linear lakes form as streams and rivers feed into the rift and as the rift grows wider and deeper it can drop below sea level. When this happens large seas are formed such as the Red Sea. John said the rift the Red Sea has been widening for almost 30 million years! There are some volcanoes around the Red Sea because as the rifts form sometimes magma can squeeze up through the cracks and erupt. There are also some earthquakes that happen around the Red Sea as the rift widens. These earthquakes tend to be milder than earthquakes found in locations with other kinds of plate boundaries. The main feature of a continental divergent boundary is a widening rift that is filled with water to make lakes and eventually oceans.

Earthquakes and volcanic eruption happen often around the area of the Red Sea as the crust cracks and magma rushed up and causes an eruption. The volcanoes and earthquakes cause some damage but the earthquakes are usually mild. The last earthquake in the Red Sea was a 4.6 on September 13 2010.

After our fascinating day learning about the Red Sea we headed back to land and spent sometime wandering around Egypt getting to know the city of Safaga. The markets were beautiful and Jen, another women on my tour, and I spent the evening visiting museums and sightseeing. At night I went to bed excited to see where we would be heading next on our tour.

- Katherine

Source of Picture:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://thegeosphere.pbworks.com/f/1269229385/diverg.jpg&imgrefurl=https://thegeosphere.pbworks.com/w/page/22058923/Plate-Tectonics-Final-Map-Project&usg=__dJDdT4KzAx1QXuM5_9W7vckSWeA=&h=839&w=959&sz=148&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=ST3o5p72cBlONM:&tbnh=154&tbnw=176&ei=quWYTZKECcfeiAKap-ycCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcontinental%2Bdivergent%2Bplate%2Bmovement%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26rlz%3D1I7GPCK_enUS367%26biw%3D1419%26bih%3D625%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=351&vpy=92&dur=1062&hovh=210&hovw=240&tx=122&ty=118&oei=quWYTZKECcfeiAKap-ycCQ&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0