Lithostratigraphy and tectonic setting of the Cairo-Suez district of Egypt is apparently controlled by rifting.
Rift-related structures are represented by a horst and graben structural pattern.
Two rifting phases were prevailing during Late Eocene (Priabonian) and Oligocene-Miocene, where the earlier phase has not been documented elsewhere in Northern Egypt.
Initiation of rifting was coeval with a Pyrenean-Atlasic movement, of a continental collision between African–Arabian and Eurasian plates.