Red Sea

I just arrived at the final stop of my tectonic plate boundary photo journey: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It is a city located on the coast of the Red Sea (21 degrees north, 39 degrees east) and a major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. I decided to take a walk around, and was amazed by the amount of artwork everywhere! During the oil boom in the late 70’s and 80’s, there was a focused civic effort to bring art to Jeddah, which is why it contains a large number of modern open-air sculptures and works of art. Most of this art is situated in roundabouts, making Jeddah one of the largest open-air galleries in the world! But now I am done with my walk, and ready to learn about the Red Sea! According to my research book, it was formed by the African Plate and the Arabian Plate splitting apart. It is a divergent boundary, and is actually still being formed. The weaknesses between the diverging plates fill with molten rock from below. Seawater cools the molten rock, which quickly solidifies and forms new oceanic lithosphere. This continuous process builds a chain of volcanoes and rift valleys. A number of volcanic islands rise from the center of the Red Sea. Most of them are dormant, but Jabal al-Tair Island, located at the mouth of the Red Sea, erupted in 2007, and an eruption among the Zubair islands followed in 2011.

Picture 1: http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/usgsnps/pltec/diverge.html

Picture 2: http://www.vulkaner.no/v/volcan/zubair.html