Seismicity Associated with the Formation of a New Island in the Southern Red Sea
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feart-06-00141 September 20, 2018 Time: 13:53 # 1 ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 24 September 2018 doi: 10.3389/feart.2018.00141 Seismicity Associated With the Formation of a New Island in the Southern Red Sea Jade H. W. Eyles1,2, Finnigan Illsley-Kemp1,3, Derek Keir1,4*, Joël Ruch5,6 and Sigurjón Jónsson6 1 Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom, 2 School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom, 3 School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, 4 Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy, 5 Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, 6 Physical Science and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia Volcanic eruptions at mid-ocean ridges are rarely witnessed due to their inaccessibility, and are therefore poorly understood. Shallow waters in the Red Sea allow the study of ocean ridge related volcanism observed close to sea level. On the 18th December 2011, Yemeni fishermen witnessed a volcanic eruption in the Southern Red Sea that led to the formation of Sholan Island. Previous research efforts to constrain the dynamics of the intrusion and subsequent eruption relied primarily on interferometric synthetic aperture Edited by: Benoit Taisne, radar (InSAR) methods, data for which were relatively sparse. Our study integrates Nanyang Technological University, InSAR analysis with seismic data from Eritrea, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia to provide Singapore additional insights into the transport of magma in the crust that fed the eruption. Twenty- Reviewed by: Luca De Siena, three earthquakes of magnitude 2.1–3.9 were located using the Oct-tree sampling University of Aberdeen, algorithm. The earthquakes propagated southeastward from near Sholan Island, mainly United Kingdom between December 12th and December 13th. The seismicity is interpreted as being Eisuke Fujita, National Research Institute for Earth induced by emplacement of a ∼12 km-long dike. Earthquake focal mechanisms are Science and Disaster Prevention, primarily normal faulting and suggest the seismicity was caused through a combination Japan of dike propagation and inflation. We combine these observations with new deformation *Correspondence: Derek Keir modeling to constrain the location and orientation of the dike. The best-fit dike [email protected] orientation that satisfies both geodetic and seismic data is NNW-SSE, parallel to the overall strike of the Red Sea. Further, the timing of the seismicity suggests the Specialty section: This article was submitted to volcanic activity began as a submarine eruption on the 13th December, which became Volcanology, a subaerial eruption on the 18th December when the island emerged from the beneath a section of the journal Frontiers in Earth Science the sea. The new intrusion and eruption along the ridge suggests seafloor spreading is Received: 04 June 2018 active in this region. Accepted: 05 September 2018 Keywords: Red Sea, mid-ocean ridge, dike, seismicity, InSAR, eruption Published: 24 September 2018 Citation: Eyles JHW, Illsley-Kemp F, Keir D, INTRODUCTION Ruch J and Jónsson S (2018) Seismicity Associated With Magma motion through the crust can induce earthquakes, the analysis of which is a useful tool to the Formation of a New Island in the Southern Red Sea. understand when, where, and how magma is transported. The understanding of magma intrusion Front. Earth Sci. 6:141. and volcanism is key for understanding dynamic processes that occur at divergent boundaries doi: 10.3389/feart.2018.00141 (e.g., Ebinger et al., 2013; Pagli et al., 2015; Ruch et al., 2016; Wilcock et al., 2016). However, Frontiers in Earth Science| www.frontiersin.org 1 September 2018| Volume 6| Article 141 feart-06-00141 September 20, 2018 Time: 13:53 # 2 Eyles et al. Southern Red Sea Volcano Seismicity the understanding of the extensional processes at submarine Preceding the Sholan eruption, three distinct seismic swarms ocean ridges in space and time is limited by the difficulty occurred in April, June, and August 2011 and the Yemeni associated with observing seismicity and ground deformation seismological network detected two earthquakes of magnitude 3.7 in the deep oceans (e.g., Soule et al., 2007; Carey et al., 2018). and 3.9 on the 13th December 2011, taken from the International Over the past 20 years, the Southern Red Sea has experienced Seismic Catalogue (ISC). In this study we investigate the six seismic swarms interpreted to be related to magma intrusions temporal and spatial variability in seismic activity prior to (Xu et al., 2015). The Southern Red Sea has a large proportion the eruption of Sholan Island. Analysis of seismic data from of shallow waters, which provide a rare opportunity to study local seismic networks in Eritrea, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia volcanic eruptions that occur above sea level (Figure 1). Three allows us to locate earthquakes surrounding the island which sub-aerial volcanic eruptions have occurred in the last decade: were not recorded by the ISC. The increased number of on Jebel at Tair island (2007) and two eruptions resulting in earthquakes that we detect, coupled with improved relative the formation of Sholan Island (2011) and Jadid Island (2013) earthquake locations, allows us to place constraints on the (Jónsson and Xu, 2015). All the islands lie on the rift axis of the location, timescales and direction of intrusion that fed the Southern Red Sea. The eruptions of Jebel at Tair and Jadid lasted eruption. In addition, we use the seismic results to guide new 8 and 2 months, respectively, and followed short duration (days) deformation models created from InSAR data. Our data of land- low magnitude (M > 4) seismic swarms thought to be caused by based stations positioned relatively close to an ocean ridge place the intrusion of magma through the crust to the Earth’s surface rare constraints on a seafloor-spreading episode and provide (Xu et al., 2015). The eruption of Jebel at Tair was subaerial, additional insights into the rifting mechanics of the Southern Red while the first half of the Jadid eruption was submarine (Xu et al., Sea. 2015). The eruption of Sholan Island occurred between Haycock and Tectonic Setting Rugged islands in the Zubair Archipelago and was first witnessed The Red Sea formed due to the divergence of the Nubian by Yemeni fishermen on the 18th December 2011 (Figure 2). and Arabian plates (Bosworth et al., 2005). Extension and The eruption started as submarine activity before erupting as rifting started 25 Ma, the emplacement of dikes throughout a surtseyan eruption, and lasted until the 12th January 2012 the Red Sea begun 24 Ma which was associated with increased (Jónsson and Xu, 2015). A SO2 anomaly was first recorded volcanism in the region (Bosworth et al., 2005). Rifting of on the 19th December from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument the Red Sea then continued in episodic periods, with seafloor (OMI) taken on NASA’s EOS-AURA satellite; maximum SO2 spreading initiating 5 Ma (Bosworth et al., 2005). Magnetic values reached 2.06 DU. The newly formed island joined ten anomalies between 16 and 19oN display five symmetrical pre-existing volcanic islands known as the Zubair Archipelago magnetic stripes that are interpreted to have begun 3 Ma (Figure 2); the island consisted primarily of hydromagmatic (Bonatti, 1985; Almalki et al., 2016). Further north, magnetic deposits reaching a maximum of 0.25 km2 (Xu et al., 2015). anomalies become discontinuous before disappearing. This has The Sholan eruption was soon followed by the eruption and led some authors to propose that spreading is confined to formation of Jadid Island in September 2013, situated between the Southern Red Sea (Bonatti, 1985), whereas other authors Saddle and Saba Islands (Figure 2). The eruption at Jadid lasted suggest that spreading is evident throughout the Red Sea for 54 days and the island reached a maximum size of ∼0.68 km2 with the southern end being further evolved (Schettino et al., (Xu et al., 2015). Optical imagery taken from the Sentinel-2 2016). satellites shows that Sholan and Jadid island are still visible South of 17◦N, GPS measurements show the locus of today. extension splits into two branches: the continuation of the Xu et al.(2015) used interferometric synthetic aperture Red Sea ridge in the east, and the Danakil depression to radar (InSAR) to measure centimeter-scale ground deformation the west (McClusky et al., 2010; Figure 1). The bifurcation during the eruption of Sholan and Jadid islands, and modeled of the rift into the Danakil depression is thought to have dikes to account for the observed deformation. For the Sholan begun 9 Ma (Le Pichon and Gaulier, 1988). The rate of eruption one interferogram from 13th October 2011 to the extension increases from 15 mm/year at 16◦N to 20 mm/year 15th December 2012 was used for interpretation; 1.5 and in the south (13◦N), with extension predominantly ENE- 3 cm of deformation were observed on Saba and Zubair WSW (McClusky et al., 2010). GPS velocities show that islands, respectively. In addition, optical imagery on the 23rd north of 16oN lateral extension is fully accommodated by the December 2011 showed the eruption coming from a short Red Sea ridge, whereas south of 13◦N lateral extension is N-S fissure as well as a new fracture system orientated NW- accommodated purely in the Danakil depression (McClusky SE on Haycock Island (Xu et al., 2015). Accounting for this et al., 2010). Together these account for the total relative plate widespread deformation, Xu et al.(2015) modeled a 1.5 m motion of the Arabian and Nubian plates. The termination thick, 10-km-long, north-south orientated feeder dike under of the Southern Red Sea rift is unclear due to conflicted Sholan Island responsible for this eruption.