Event CH4-E5 - Modeled Age 137-206 CE
At the
deltaic site of Bet Zeyda (aka Beteiha), just north of the
Sea of Galilee (aka Lake Kinneret),
three-dimensional paleoseismic investigations
were conducted by multiple researchers over a number
of years using numerous trenches. The studies
examined a series of ~E–W-oriented
paleo-channels intersected and
sinistrally displaced by the ~N–S-trending
active Jordan Gorge Fault, producing a detailed
chronology of fault activity over roughly the past
2,000 years, based on
radiocarbon dating of
detrital charcoal. Once outliers are
excluded, this material appears to have a
residence time of decades rather than
centuries (e.g. see
Marco et al., 2005:200). Results indicate that
seismic events were more frequent and produced
greater fault slip during the first millennium CE
than in the second, suggesting the region may be
approaching another period of heightened seismic
activity.
Wechsler et al. (2014:9) identified six
earthquakes in paleo-channel 4 (CH4).
Wechsler et al. (2018:216) add that channel 4
crossed the fault in an area where a long, linear,
and narrow
pressure ridge is interpreted to have
produced localized uplift east of the main fault,
while subsidence to the west caused sediment
thickening.
Wechsler et al. (2014:13) report that Event
CH4-E5 was "interpreted from many small faults that
break to the top of unit 480 and are capped by
units 450–469." On the south wall of Trench T37,
they observed
stratigraphic growth where
strata thickened along the axis of a
small
syncline in the area of maximum change
in
bedding dip, noting that "these strata
thin onto the
fold scarp of the pressure ridge"
crossed by Channel CH4. They added that "the amount
of deformation [in CH4-E5] appears relatively minor
when compared with that in event CH4-E6," and
therefore "interpret this [CH4-E5] as a smaller
event."
Wechsler et al. (2018:Table 3) date this event
to 137–206 CE but were unable to estimate offset
associated with this event. Dating is based on a
bayesian model of radiocarbon ages.
