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Crustal thickness beneath the Red Sea derived from satellite gravity data
Ahmed Salem1&2, Chris Green1&2, and J. Derek Fairhead1&2*, Lorenzo Cascone1, Lee Moorhead1, Simon
Campbell1
GETECH1Leeds, UK, University of Leeds2, Leeds, UK
Summary
This paper uses 3D inversion of satellite gravity data to
identify and map the positive gravity component due to the
Moho interface and upper mantle beneath and along the
Red Sea. The 3D inversion was constrained based on
seismic data in the northern Red Sea. The depth to Moho
varies from ~35 km in the adjacent continents to around 20
km at the coast and shallows in the axial troughs to about
10 km. The results, which have been constrained by some
but not all seismic measurements, are in good agreement
with other published Moho depths. The approach could be
used to map continental margins, provided appropriate
control information is available.

modeling the gravity contribution of the Moho and upper

mantle can significantly assist our ability to isolate the
gravity response of the pre-salt sediments.
This paper uses 3D inversion of satellite gravity data to
identify and map the positive gravity component due to the
Moho interface and upper mantle beneath and along the
Red Sea. However, this contribution does not describe the
full process used to map the pre-salt section but specifically
reports on a constrained approach to identify and map the
gravity component due to the Moho and upper mantle and
on an inversion for Moho structure assuming a constant
density for the upper mantle.
Satellite gravity data

Introduction
The Red Sea is an embryonic ocean basin opening from
south to north and is close to being an ideal case to
investigate. Its southern section has already progressed to
the drift stage with oceanic crust present, the central section
is in a transitional stage and the northern section is
extended and rifted continental crust. Since there has been a
major salt deposition stage within the Red Sea evolution,
seismic imaging of the pre-salt sediments and structures has
been difficult to impossible. The solution to this problem
may be found by analyzing gravity data which are very
sensitive to positive and negative density variation within
the crust. The main positive (+ve) and negative (-ve)
gravity contributions from the crust and upper mantle are
listed below, relative to a standard layered continental
crust:
Sea water and bathymetric section (density and
depth known and incorporated in Bouguer anomaly, so
no effect when using Bouguer anomaly data)
Post-salt sediments (-ve) (function with depth
determined from seismic velocity and well data)
Salt (ve) ( and velocity known from seismic
interfaces of top salt and much of base salt imaged)
Pre-salt sediments to basement (-ve) ( and
thickness generally unknown)
Moho and upper mantle (+ve) (spatial variation of
and depth generally unknown except in isolated
locations from seismic refraction studies).
Several of these gravity contributions will have a similar
shape elongate anomalies parallel to the Red Sea. Thus

This study restricts its figures to the marine parts of the Red
Sea where the thinnest crust occurs but clearly crustal
thinning also extends some way beneath the Nubian and
Saudi plates. The satellite gravity data set (Figure 1) used
in this study is the Trident Bouguer anomaly (density
2670 kg/m3) grid developed by GETECH (Fairhead et al.,
2009). It was generated by merging (stacking or averaging)
the GETECH Ultimate satellite gravity solution (Fairhead
et al., 2004) with the significantly improved Sandwell &
Smith v16 and Danish National Space center (DNSC08)
solutions. Although the GETECH solution marginally
outperforms these other two solutions, there is a significant
reduction of noise by merging the three solutions, to
generate Trident. This 0.02 degree grid has half
wavelength resolution of 6.5 km and ~2 mGal accuracy,
based on correlations with higher resolution marine gravity
surveys.
Generally, the Red Sea is characterized by positive
Bouguer anomaly values located over the median troughs
of the Red Sea with a maximum value of 140 mGal. This
positive gravity anomaly is generated by a combination of
dense juvenile oceanic crust (in the south) and thinned
(stretched) continental crust (along the whole length)
producing an excess mass responsible for the observed
gravity high (Makris et al., 1991). These anomalies related
to broad scale crustal composition, the Moho and the upper
mantle are generally relatively long wavelength due to their
depth. Sediments are known to exist all the way along the
Red Sea (although not right across in all parts); the negative
gravity effect of these sediments lowers the observed
Bouguer anomalies and complicates the signal.

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GEM Beijing 2011: International Workshop on Gravity, Electrical & Magnetic Methods and Their Applications
Beijing, China. October 10-13, 2011.

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Crustal thickness beneath the Red Sea

The northern Red Sea does not have oceanic crust but is
characterized by a broad positive gravity anomaly with
maximum gravity value of 121 mGal. This is despite a
large thickness of low density sediments. Fairhead and
Green (1989) have shown that positive Bouguer anomalies
are associated with the Mesozoic rift basins of the West and
Central African Rift System and Stuart et al. (1985) using
refraction data confirmed the crustal thinning beneath these
rifts which necessitated a low positive density contrast of
170 kg/m3 across the Moho interface.

contribution, we are interested in the positive gravity

anomaly associated with the Moho discontinuity, which has
been identified as the only positive gravity contribution in
the whole system. So our aim is to separate from the
gravity data that part of the anomalies that is due to
positive density deviations from those due to negative
density deviations. Separation of superimposed gravity
effects has in general been a major problem historically.
There have been many approaches to this problem,
generally involving subtracting a long-wavelength trend
from the data in either space or frequency domains. None
of these computer based filtering methods appear ideally to
isolate the Red Sea Moho source since a) the sedimentary
(-ve gravity response) and Moho (+ve response) both have
widths similar to that of the Red Sea, such that there is not
a clear wavelength difference in the signals, b) the thick
sediments significantly reduce the amplitude of the
Bouguer anomaly, such that the +ve anomaly may not be
identifiable and c) most filters would have some form of
least squares fit resulting in both positive and negative
residuals, thus significantly underestimating the Moho
response. We applied low pass filter with different cutoffs
and selected the best cutoff (200 km) that give reasonable
positive gravity field representing the Moho effect and
negative reasonable residual gravity range representing the
sedimentary and salt effects (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Bouguer Satellite gravity data of the Red Sea

The central Red Sea is a transition zone between the

continental zone in the north and the oceanic southern part.
It is characterized by a narrow positive satellite gravity
anomaly along the median trough. These anomalies are
most probably associated with magmatic intrusions as part
of the separation of the continental crustal blocks. In this
zone, seafloor spreading has been interpreted and dated to 5
Ma (Girdler, 1991). The satellite gravity anomalies in the
southern Red Sea are sharp, narrow and positive above the
median troughs with maximum values of 137.8 mGal. Here
the bifurcation of crustal extension within the Afar region
complicates the simple picture farther north in the Red Sea.

3D inversion

Figure 2: gravity anomalies of sources with positive density

deviation within the Red Sea rift

The Bouguer anomaly contains all density deviations from

an ideal earth model (Erwin, 1977). The resulting Bouguer
anomaly may be considered as the sum of positive and
negative gravity contributions produced by positive and
negative density variations in the sub-surface. In this

We use a 3D iterative inversion methodology based on the

method of Parker (1972) to invert positive gravity
anomalies (Figure 2) in order to map the Moho interface
and the residual negative gravity anomalies to map the

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Chinese Geophysical Society

GEM Beijing 2011: International Workshop on Gravity, Electrical & Magnetic Methods and Their Applications
Beijing, China. October 10-13, 2011.

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Crustal thickness beneath the Red Sea

sediment-basement interface. For the Moho interface, we
use a two layer model with pre-assumed density contrast
based on correlation analysis between the Bouguer
anomaly data and published depth to Moho based on
seismic data (Makris, 1980, El Isa al. 1987, and Gaulier et
al. , 1988) (Figure 3). Using a simple infinite slab layer
having thickness defined from the depth to Moho based on
seismic refraction, a density contrast of 231.5 kg/m3 was
found to provide the best fit for the satellite gravity data
(Figure 4). This small positive density contrast between the
crust and upper mantle is supported by the value of 170
kg/m3 that Stuart et al (1985) derived from seismic
refraction studies for the Mesozoic rifts in northern
Cameroon. Figure 5 shows the output 3D topography of the
Moho.

Figure 3: Depth to Moho based on Seismic refraction data

(Makris, 1980, El Isa al. ,1987and Gaulier et al. , 1988).

Results
The Moho (Figure 5) is relatively deep at the coastal areas
and shallows towards the median bathymetric trough. The
Moho depth in the coastal area is about 20-30 km. Gaulier
et al. (1988) concluded that there is an abrupt change in the
level of the Moho at about the shoreline of the northern
Red Sea where it is about 20 km deep and descends to a
depth of 35 km or greater under the Arabian Shield.

Figure 5: Map of the Moho interface based on 3D inversion

of Satellite gravity data.
In the northern part of the Red Sea the depth to Moho is
constrained based on seismic data (Gaulier et al., 1988;
Makris et al., 1991; Rihm et al., 1991) with a mean depth of
1013 km, and at 20 km closest to the coastline. Prutkin
and Saleh (2009) found similar results from marine gravity
data of the northern Red Sea. Avedik et al. (1988) and
Gaulier et al. (1988) estimated depth to Moho as 11.5 to 15
km at north latitude 25o. In the Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba,
the Moho is found at a relatively deep depth of 1820 km at
the median troughs and at a mean depth of 30 km close to
the coastal areas. In the central Red Sea, the depth to Moho
is as shallow as 11 km indicating uplift in the mantle.

Figure 4: Using the data shown on Figure 3 the dots show

the relation between depth to Moho based on seismic
refraction and the filtered satellite gravity data (Figure 2).
The slope of the best fit line indicates the most appropriate
density contrast of 231.5 kg/m3.

The Moho may be even shallower than this but our study
(Figure 2) was restricted to a Low Pass filter length of 200
km. To either side of the central zone the crust is
characterized by stretched continental crust covered by
thick sedimentary sequences based on seismic data which
indicated the existence of pre Miocene sediments (Richter
et al., 1991). In the southern area the depth to Moho is even
shallower - 9.8 km at latitude 20o. This is consistent with

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Chinese Geophysical Society

GEM Beijing 2011: International Workshop on Gravity, Electrical & Magnetic Methods and Their Applications
Beijing, China. October 10-13, 2011.

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Crustal thickness beneath the Red Sea

seismic refraction results (Prodehl, 1985) that show the
Moho is at a depth of about about 40 km beneath Saudi
Arabia and thins to 8-14 km depth in the southern Red Sea.
Our results, which have been constrained by some but not
all seismic measurements, are in good agreement with other
published Moho depths (Cochran and Martinez, 1988;
Saleh et al., 2006). The present results are also in good
agreement with the geothermal gradient values in the Red
Sea (Cochran et al., 1986). Spatially varying density of the
anomalous upper mantle of the Red Sea rift has not been
incorporated in this simple model where all density contrast
is related to the Moho depth. Thus partial melting in the
upper mantle beneath the axial parts of the Red sea has not
been considered.
Conclusion
In this paper we investigate the Moho and upper mantle
contribution to the satellite gravity data of the Red Sea. We
inverted the positive component of the satellite gravity data
to map the 3D topography of the Moho boundary in the
Red Sea. The 3D inversion was constrained based on
seismic data in the northern Red Sea. The depth to Moho
varies from ~35 km in the adjacent continents to around 20
km at the coast and shallows in the axial troughs to about
10 km. These results, which have been constrained by
seismic measurements, are in agreement with published
Moho depths. Satellite derived Bouguer anomaly data can
therefore be used to map the Moho in rifts and narrow
ocean basins, based on using seismic data to separate the
Moho gravity effect and to calibrate density contrasts. The
same approach could be used to map continental margins,
provided appropriate control information is available.
Acknowledgments
We greatly appreciate the comments of Dr. Xiong Li on the
manuscript.
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The Society of Exploration Geophysicists and the Chinese Geophysical Society

GEM Beijing 2011: International Workshop on Gravity, Electrical & Magnetic Methods and Their Applications
Beijing, China. October 10-13, 2011.