Airborne Magnetic Data Interpretation to delineate the Subsurface Structure of Qena-Quseir Shear Zone Area, Eastern Desert, Egypt
Qena-Quseir shear zone area is located at the central part of the Eastern Desert covering area of about 9460 Km2. This area is mainly covered by basement rocks however there are parts covered by sedimentary rocks ranging in age from Upper Cretaceous to Quaternary. High-resolution magnetic data can be used as a good tool to delineate the basement surface; explain many structure features such as faults, lineaments, joints and lithological features. In this research work, high resolution imaging methods, inversion and feature extraction techniques have been applied on airborne magnetic data collected over Qena-Quseir shear zone area. Two techniques of depth calculations were applied to the aeromagnetic data of the study area. The first look to the two maps show that their results are much closed to each other. In the two maps, the western part of the area shows more deeper depth to basement representing thicker sedimentary section. The depth to basement of this part ranging from 600 m to more than 1000 m. The two maps show that the depth of the eastern part of the area is very shallow and has depth ranges from 152 m to less than 10 m because of the outcropping of the basement rocks at this part. This area is occupied mainly with the granitic and Metavolcanics rocks. Regional basement tectonic map shows three systems of faults, which trending in NW-SE, E-W and NE-SW directions respectively. These faults also suffered from strike-slip movements trending in NE-SW. To confirm the interpreted basement structural relief of the study area, 2D magnetic modeling was carried out along four profiles AA?, BB?, CC? and DD? oriented in N-S trend, WSW-ENE trend, NNW-SSE trend and NE-SW trend respectively.
