Reconstructing the Tectonic History of the Arabian-Nubian Shield in Sinai: Low-Temperature Thermochronology Implications on Wadi Agar Area

The Arabian-Nubian Shield envelops the entire regional tectonic history from its formation during the Ediacaran to the Red Sea/Gulf of Suez rifting in the Oligocene-Miocene. The occurrence and extent of the expected successive tectonic events on Sinai basement rocks remain uncertain. Integration of thermochronological techniques with time-temperature modelling has proven to be a powerful tool for thermal-tectonic history reconstruction. Therefore, we collected representative samples from the Arabian-Nubian Shield basement rocks of the Wadi Agar area at the eastern flank of the Suez rift. Zircon fission-track data show two cooling age possibilities of Ediacaran and Devonian ages. Meanwhile, apatite fission-track data represent three cooling age spans of Carboniferous, Triassic, and Cretaceous. The integration of these data with the modelled time-temperature histories reveals four different cooling events synchronous with the regional events; (1) the Neoproterozoic post-accretion erosional event that causes near-surface rock uplift, (2) the Devonian-Carboniferous Hercynian tectonic event which affected the region with rocks exhumation of ca. 4.2 +/- 1.4 km, (3) the Triassic Gondwana breakup initiation, and (4) the Oligocene-Miocene Gulf of Suez rifting which caused flanks uplift in the studied region of ca. 1.2 +/- 0.4 km. The Gulf of Suez is a passive rift with a dominant mechanical component that is divided into two differently exhumed northern and southern segments, where an additional far-field thermal overprint was restricted to the southern segment.