Suez rift is one of the active seismic zones in the northward continuation of the Red Sea, as indicated by recent earthquake records from the Egyptian National Seismological Network (ENSN). We present a new model of P and S wave velocities in the crust and uppermost mantle beneath the Gulf of Suez and surrounding areas, including the northern portion of the Red Sea. Using the records from 94 seismic stations, we analyzed per form and similar to 17,000 S wave arrival times from 9700 events. The travel time tomography inversion was performed using the iterative LOTOS code. The spatial resolutions of the derived models were assessed using several synthetic tests. The most prominent anomaly is a sharp high-velocity anomaly beneath the Red Sea, which is observed in both the P and S models at all depth intervals. We interpret this anomaly to be oceanic crust that was formed through extension associated with a dispersed system of spreading centers. Beneath the Gulf of Suez, the upper and middle crusts appear to be strongly heterogeneous and are dominated by low velocity anomalies, indicative of the continental nature of the crusts.
