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Photo-interpretation of Landsat TM image was carried out in a test area of 500 km2 and Quickbird satellite images were used to detail a subset of 50 km2. Even if visual interpretation is usually highly dependent on the interpreter’s skill and intuition and, therefore, rather subjective, the present paper offers some evaluations of the results deriving from it as a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the lithology and structural setting of an area that has not yet been mapped in detail.

2. geoLogicaL setting

PThe Eritrean continental margin, that formed during the Red Sea rifting starting from the earliest Miocene (Cochran & Martinez, 1988), is one of the youngest in the world. It is characterized by a large uplifted rift flank (Eritrean plateau) that exposes the basement, a steep escarpment and a low-elevation coastal area where sedimentary and volcanic rocks, related to the rift stage, crop out (Drury et