A group of KAUST faculty and scientists, composed of members of ANPERC and the Red Sea Research Center, traveled to the northwestern part of Saudi Arabia last month.

As postdoc Jakub Fedorik puts it: "The Gulf of Aqaba shows different structural styles onshore and offshore and this evolution in deformation is still not clearly understood." This trip studied rocks and took samples from across the wide variety of rock types and ages available.

Another ANPERC postdoc, Tihana Pensa, explains why this area is so important. "The Midyan area is particularly interesting because at the same time we can study stratigraphy and structure of the Red Sea rift and strike-slip structures along the Gulf of Aqaba. One of the main goals during this field trip were to sample fresh outcrops of Miocene Anhydrite which can be dated using Strontium isotope stratigraphy and used for better understanding of geological evolution of this area."

Two ErSE scientists joined in the exciting work.

Jakub also pointed out one of the key resources available on the trip. "The most important was the presence of our PI, Abdulkader Afifi, who had a great knowledge of the area and could respond to all of our geological questions."