Discovery of the deep-sea NEOM Brine Pools in the Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea

Abstract Deep-sea brine pools represent hypersaline environments famed for their extremophile microbes. With anoxia entirely excluding bioturbating megafauna, are also conducive to the pristine preservation of sedimentary sequences. Here we use bathymetric and geophysical observations locate a complex in Gulf Aqaba consisting one 10,000 m 2 pool three minor less than 10 . We further conduct sediment coring direct sampling confirm environmental characteristics these pools. find that main preserves stratigraphy which spans at least 1200 years contains combination turbidites, likely resulting from flashfloods local seismicity, tsunamigenic terrestrial sediment. The NEOM Brine Pools, as name them, extend known geographical range Red Sea pools, unique preservational environment signals regional climatic tectonic events.