Nemer and Meghraoui (2006) report that Event Z in the Jarmaq trench, which intersects the Roum fault, cuts all units and occurred before the deposition of unit a. No reliable upper bound could be established for this event. Event Y is constrained from a radiocarbon date from unit b, indicating that it occurred after 84-239 CE. Unit b was radiocarbon dated by one bulk soil sample (JAR-1-B). The Jarmaq trench as a whole indicates combined left-lateral strike-slip and normal motion. Nemer and Meghraoui (2006) proposed that Event Z may correlate with either the 551 CE Beirut Earthquake or the 1837 CE Safed Earthquake, with their interpretation favoring attribution to the latter. They argued that the 551 CE Beirut earthquake appears to have had an epicenter offshore Beirut, produced strong coastal destruction and a tsunami, and would require an unproven offshore continuation of the Roum fault. By contrast, the 1837 CE Safed earthquake caused severe damage in the vicinity of the mapped Roum fault, and the concentration of damage west of the Jordan Valley and Yammouneh fault made the Roum fault the most likely source for this earthquake.

Fig. 6 - (a) Photo mosaic of the southern wall of the excavation across the Roum fault showing the rupture strands (white lines) and associated stratigraphic units (labelled in yellow). (b) Illustration of a. The 5 palaeoseismic events determined from the capping horizons are labelled V to Z in black boxes (see text for details and Fig. 7 for the palaeo-earthquake distribution). Black squares are the 6 measured and reliable unit radiocarbon ages. - clcik on link to open in a new tab - Nemer and Meghraoui (2006)