Arabian Nubian Shield and the Saharan meta-craton boundary, East Egypt: Inference from a long period magnetotelluric survey

The Arabian-Nubian Shield (ANS) boundary with the Saharan Meta-craton is the geological boundary between the eastern and western regions of the Gondwana supercontinent, located near the northern extremity of the East African Orogen. The shield is composed of ancient Archaean and Paleoproterozoic continental crust, as well as Neoproterozoic continental-marginal and juvenile intraoceanic magmatic-arc terranes. The construction and disintegration of supercontinents in the northern region of the East African Orogen (EAO) are contingent upon data obtained from the East Saharan Craton and deductions made from the Neoproterozoic events in the Arabian-Nubian Shield (ANS). The tectonic boundary is generally characterized by sheering and highly decorated zones in the upper crust, making this environment preferable for mineralization. This pilot study uses empirical data from long-period Magnetotelluric measurements to investigate the boundary between ANS and the east Sahara meta-craton. The collected data shows variation in upper crust lithology, with most stations measuring in narrow valleys within the Red Sea basement rocks characterized by static shift and high fluctuation of tipper. The inversion of the MT data is conducted using Occam's inversion for 2D Magnetotelluric (MT) modeling, which solves the forward module response and obtains the model misfit using the finite element method. The boundaries between the two cratons are located around the surface location of station MT08, and the geological interpretation of the generated 2D model can be described.