Opening of the Aden Gulf Ridge Derived from GPS Constraints and Plate Tectonic Models

The Aden Gulf Ridge forms, together with the Red Sea and the Ethiopian Rift, the only emerged RRR-type (Ridge/Ridge/Ridge) triple junction in the globe: the Afar Triple Junction. The Aden Gulf Ridge defines the boundary between two major tectonic blocks: Arabia and Somalia, being Nubia the third unit in the triple junction (bordering Arabia along the Red Sea and Somalia along the Ethiopian Rift). Although the extensional behaviour of these structures are well known, the present-day magnitudes of their opening rates are still under evaluation, in particular for the opening rate between the Arabia and Somalia plates. This work uses GPS observations acquired in campaign and continuous mode in order to better constrain the opening rates of the three plate boundaries. For the Nubia-Arabia and Nubia-Somalia boundary plates, we use solely the velocity predictions given by our computed angular velocity models using the available continuous stations in Nubia, Somalia and Arabia. The available data set is augmented here with several stations in Saudi Arabia, which allow us to better constrain the angular velocity for the stable part of the Arabia plate. We estimate the angular velocity model with respect to ITRF2008 (the latest realization of the International Terrestrial Reference System) using the value of 2.5 years (although most of the stations have already a significantly longer time-series) as threshold data span for the processed time-series. Temporal correlations are used to properly estimate the uncertainty of the time-series and derived angular velocity model. In addition, to study the near-field in the Aden Gulf, data acquired in denser campaign networks in Yemen and Oman are used to also directly compute the extension rate in the Red Sea. We show that most of the Arabian Peninsula is stable (within the uncertainties) but the southwest part (Yemen) is influenced by the proximity with the Afar Triple Junction.