Nemer and Meghraoui (2006) investigated the Jarmaq trench, which intersects the Roum fault. Evidence from the trench indicates a combination of left-lateral strike-slip and normal displacement. The youngest identified event, Event Z, cuts all exposed units and occurred before deposition of overlying unit a. No reliable upper age bound could be established. A lower age bound is provided by unit b, indicating that Event Z occurred after 84–239 CE. Unit b was radiocarbon dated using a single bulk soil sample (JAR-1-B). Nemer and Meghraoui (2006) proposed that Event Z could correlate with either the 551 CE Beirut Earthquake or the 1837 CE Safed Earthquake, but favored attribution to the latter. They argued that the 551 CE Beirut earthquake appears to have had an epicenter offshore Beirut, produced severe coastal destruction and a tsunami, and would require an unproven offshore continuation of the Roum fault. In contrast, the 1837 CE Safed earthquake caused severe damage near the mapped Roum fault.

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)