CURIE DEPTH ANALYSIS OF THE AFAR REGION, ETHIOPIA

The Afar region is a triangular region where the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and the Ethiopian portion of the East African Rift meet separating the Nubian, Somalian and Arabian plates meet. The Afar region developed from a Miocene flood basalt province and may have originated from the Afar mantle plume. Since its formation, it has undergone significant extension that formed the triangular region. Two oceanic spreading centers have stepped onto the Afar region forming the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea propagators. These propagators are expressed as active magmatic centers in a graben structure that do not meet at the surface but are separated by an 120 km wide overlap zone. In order to investigate the thermal structure of the Afar region and how this is related to the ongoing extension and active volcanism, a Curie isothermal depth analysis is performed using regional magmatic data. The analysis of the aeromagnetic data to determine the Curie isothermal depth is commonly done by two-dimensional power spectrum methods, however these methods have poor spatial resolution and may not in the case of the Afar region determine thermal anomalies related to the known regions of extension. In order to better determine the crustal magnetic structure and to related this to Curie isothermal depths, we will apply a three-dimensional magnetic inversion method that has been successfully used in the Death Valley and Salton Sea Regions of California (Hussein and Mickus, 2016). The Curie isothermal depths will be compared with the previous gravity and broadband seismic analyzes to aid in determine the tectonic regime and regions of active extension in the Afar region.