Mapping and Analyzing the Volcano-Petrology and Tectono-Seismicity Characteristics Along the Syrian Rift – NW the Arabian Plate - Advances in Data, Methods, Models and Their Applications in Geoscience - page 140

2. Geodynamic setting
The Arabian plate has a roughly polygonal shape, inserted between the major African plate
(including Nubian and Somalian ),to the East, and Eurasiatic and Indian plates, to the North.
It is delimitated by the Red Sea in the South-West, the Aden gulf in the South, and the
Za g ros and Taurus chains in the North and North-East, respectively.
Geophysical investigations confirms the typical continental nature of this plate, with an
average crust thickness of 40 Km, which changes, at the level of the Red Sea , to less than 15
Km., on a distance of about 250Km.(Al Damegh et al.2005).
The Arabian plate shows three types of active borders (Fig.1):

Fig. 1. Geodynamic framework of the Arab plate (Barrier et al. 2004).

- Convergent :it include the collision zone of Bitlis-Zagros (Fig.1,A,B) ,(Sosson et al

2005,Molinaro et al 2005,Agard et al.2006),the subduction Makran-Oman zone between