The history of recorded geological observations of the Egyptian Eastern Desert and Sinai is divided into five stages: Pharaonic, Roman to early Ottoman, nineteenth century, twentieth century to the 1950s and post-1950s. Pharaonic interests were mainly resource-focused (gold, gemstones, hard stone) and are exemplified by the Turin Papyrus geological map. Roman to early Ottoman activities followed similar motivations and transported huge quantities of Egyptian stone across the Mediterranean.

The “Supercontinents” constitute the majority of the ancient Earth’s surface and play an important role in Earth’s history (Meert 2012). Supercontinent defined as a large, solid, homogeneous massif of the Earth’s crust, which contains nearly all the continental crust of the planet. It is believed that the largest part of the continental crust formed in the period of 3,200–2,500 million years (Ma) and its fragments are included in all the modern continents (Lubnina and Slabunov 2011).

The Arabian–Nubian Shield (ANS) is a vast and exceptionally well-preserved expanse of crust and underlying sub-continental lithospheric mantle that was largely produced during the Neoproterozoic, with only restricted contribution from older lithospheric components, except in the extreme north-eastern part of the shield. With an exposed area of nearly 2 million km², and an additional 1 million km² buried beneath the great Cenozoic East African Rift System and its associated volcanic rocks, the shield represents one of the best-preserved Neoproterozoic orogenic belts on the planet and the largest preserved expanse of new Neoproterozoic lithosphere in Earth’s geological history.

Abstract—Following a long period of island arc-like orogenic activity, post-orogenic granites of Pan-African age (670-550 Ma) were emplaced throughout the Arabian Shield. Most of these rocks are typical subsolvus calcalkaline biotite monzogranite. The early Pan-African granites are associated with widespread small tholeiitic gabbro intrusions, many of which are layered. The calc-alkaline granites are not evenly distributed and their area of exposure relative to other rock types increases from S.W. to north and N.E. In the north-eastern part of the shield, they are associated spatially with rhyolites of similar composition and with molasse derived from granitic terrane.

The Precambrian crust of Saudi Arabia, the eastern Sudan and Egypt consists of abundant granites and granodiorites, arc-type volcanics, and well-authenticated ophiolites. The metamorphic grade is generally low. Archaean remnants are absent. In contrast, the Precambrian in the Mozambique belt in Kenya and Tanzania consists of high-grade metamorphic rocks, contains much reworked Archaean basement, and few granitic or granodioritic plutons. It is proposed that there is a transition from crust formed by successive accretion of island arc/back arc complexes in the north to products of collisions between plates carrying Archaean continental crust in the south. The collision led to Himalayan-type crustal thickening, deep erosion and isostatic uplift, exposing deep-crustal rocks. <...>