Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (11) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Begin, Z.B. Articles by Marco, S. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

A 40,000 year unchanging seismic regime in the Dead Sea rift

¹ Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malche Yisrael Street, Jerusalem 95501, Israel
² Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Tel Aviv University, Levanon Street, Tel Aviv 69778, Israel
³ URS Group International Inc., 566 El Dorado, Pasadena, California 912101-2560, USA
⁴ Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Levanon Street, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel

We studied breccia beds in lacustrine sediments within the active Dead Sea basin. The beds were deformed by M >5.5 earthquakes during the past 60 k.y. Our new analysis considers both the thickness of breccia beds and the lithology of beds directly overlying them in order to identify 11 M >7 earthquakes that originated within the Dead Sea pull-apart between 54 and 16 ka. The resulting time series is a unique long record of earthquakes in a well-constrained segment of a fault system in which the time interval between consecutive earthquakes increased from hundreds of years to a background recurrence interval of 11 k.y. since ca. 40 ka. Since this recurrence interval is similar to the M 7.2 recurrence interval in the Dead Sea basin, as extrapolated from present seismicity, we suggest that the present seismic regime in the Dead Sea basin, as reflected in its magnitude-frequency relation as well as in its deficiency in seismic moment, has been stationary for the past 40 k.y. Since the increasing interval between consecutive earthquakes in the studied segment of the Dead Sea fault is time-logarithmic, it may be a result of healing of the brittle crust as well as a diminishing strain rate following the first strong earthquake in the sequence.

Key Words: paleoseismicity • tsunami • relaxation • Dead Sea rift

This article has been cited by other articles:

				Y. Hamiel, R. Amit, Z. B. Begin, S. Marco, O. Katz, A. Salamon, E. Zilberman, and N. Porat The Seismicity along the Dead Sea Fault during the Last 60,000 Years Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, June 1, 2009; 99(3): 2020 - 2026. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Frumkin Formation and dating of a salt pillar in Mount Sedom diapir, Israel Geological Society of America Bulletin, January 1, 2009; 121(1-2): 286 - 293. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				T. Levi, R. Weinberger, T. Aifa, Y. Eyal, and S. Marco Earthquake-induced clastic dikes detected by anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility Geology, February 1, 2006; 34(2): 69 - 72. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. Agnon, C. Migowski, and S. Marco Intraclast breccias in laminated sequences reviewed: Recorders of paleo-earthquakes Geological Society of America Special Papers, January 1, 2006; 401(0): 195 - 214. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				E. J. Kagan, A. Agnon, M. Bar-Matthews, and A. Ayalon Dating large infrequent earthquakes by damaged cave deposits Geology, April 1, 2005; 33(4): 261 - 264. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]