The NEOM Brine Pools – The First Discovery in the Gulf of Aqaba

We present the NEOM Brine Pools, the first complex of brine pools discovered in the Gulf of Aqaba. The discovery was made at 1,770 m water depth and consists of one large pool (10,000 m2) flanked by three minor ones (<10 m2). Situated immediately at the toe-of-slope, the largest of the NEOM brine pools episodically receives terrestrial outwash from the Saudi coastal plain. A transect of cores through this pool’s bed reveals a stratigraphy spanning the last 1,200 yrs. Major terrestrial inputs to the basin are recorded once per century, which we attribute to tsunami. Turbidite beds, meanwhile, deposit every 25 yrs. and likely record both flashfloods and the pervasive seismicity of the Aragonese Deep, the pull-apart basin in which the pools situate. Such signals are exquisitely preserved beneath the pools as bioturbating organisms cannot occupy the harsh hypersaline, anoxic brine. These observations extend the known geographical range of Red Sea brine pools, introduce a new sediment archive of event horizons, and document a new bathyal ecosystem in the Gulf of Aqaba; ultimately providing a range of significant data that will contribute to the reconstruction of more than one millennium of preserved turbidites, flashfloods, and tsunami sedimentary deposits.