Estimating location and size of historical earthquake by combining archaeology and geology in Umm-El-Qanatir,Dead Sea Transform |
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| Authors: | Neta Wechsler Oded Katz Yehoshua Dray Ilana Gonen Shmuel Marco |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel;(2) Present address: Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA;(3) Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel;(4) Restoration of Ancient Technology, Binyamina, Israel |
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| Abstract: | We study the Byzantine-to-Ummayad (6th–8th century) archaeological site of Umm-El-Qanatir, located 10 km east of the Dead
Sea Transform (DST) in northern Israel. The site was damaged by an earthquake-induced landslide, and in this work we use slope
stability analysis to constrain the historical seismic acceleration that occurred along the northern segment of the DST. Umm-El-Qanatir
archaeological site is located on a slope of a canyon and contains evidence for earthquake-related damage, including fallen
columns and walls, horizontal shift of heavy masonry blocks, and complete burial of ceramic pots and farming tools beneath
fallen ceilings. A water pool that collected spring water is displaced nearly one meter by the landslide. The artifacts from
the village and the spring area indicate that people inhabited the site until the middle of the 8th century. We argue that
the destruction, which forced the abandonment of Umm-El-Qanatir together with nearby settlements, was associated with the
earthquake of January 18, 749 CE. In order to evaluate the ground acceleration related to the above earthquake, we back-analyze
the stability of a failed slope, which cut and displaced the water-pool, using slope stability software (Slope/W). The results
show that the slope is statically stable and that high values of horizontal seismic acceleration (>0.3 g) are required to
induce slope failure. Subsequently, we use the Newmark displacement method to calculate the earthquake magnitude needed to
cause the slope failure as a function of distance from the site. The results (attributed to the 749 CE earthquake) show that
a MW > 7.0 earthquake up to 25 km from the site could have induced the studied landslide. |
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| Keywords: | Dead-Sea transform Historical earthquakes Landslides Archaeoseismology Peak ground acceleration |
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