The Integration of Gravity, Magnetic and Seismic data in delineating the sedimentary basins of Northern Sinai and deducing their structural controls (2016)

The Sinai Peninsula is a part of the Sinai sub-plate that located between the southeast Nubian–Arabian
shield and the southeastern Mediterranean northward. The main objectives of this investigation are to
deduce the main sedimentary basin and its subdivisions, identify the subsurface structural framework
that affects the study area and determine the thickness of sedimentary cover of the basement surface.
The total intensity magnetic map, Bouguer gravity map and seismic data were used to achieve the study
aims. Structural interpretation of the gravity and magnetic data were done by applying advanced processing techniques. These techniques include; Reduce to the pole (RTP), Power spectrum, Tile derivative
and Analytical Signal techniques were applied on gravity and magnetic data. Two dimensional gravity
and magnetic modeling and interpretation of seismic sections were done to determine the thickness of
sedimentary cover of the study area. The integration of our interpretation suggests that, the northern
Sinai area consists of elongated troughs that contain many high structural trends. Four major structural
trends have been identified, that, reflecting the influence of district regional tectonic movements. These
trends are: (1) NE–SW trend; (2) NNW–SSE trend; (3) ENE–WSW trend and (4) WNW–ESE trend. There
are also many minor trends, E–W, NW–SE and N–S structural trends. The main sedimentary basin
of North Sinai is divided into four sub-basins; (1) Northern Maghara; (2) Northeastern Sinai;
(3) Northwestern Sinai and (4) Central Sinai basin. The sedimentary cover ranges between 2 km and
7 km in the northern part of the study area.