Dead Sea
Dead Sea in Google Earthclick on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth
| Transliterated Name | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| The Dead Sea | English | |
| Lake of Sodom | English | |
| Lake Asphaltites | English | |
| Yam ha Melaḥ | Hebrew | יַם הַמֶּלַח |
| Yam ha Mavet | Hebrew | ים המוות |
| Yam ha Arava | Hebrew | ים הערבה |
| Ha Yam ha Kadmoni | Hebrew | הים הקדמוני |
| Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū | Arabic | اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ |
| Buhayrat, Bahret, or Birket Lut | Arabic | بحر لوط |
| Nekrá Thálassa | Greek | Νεκρά Θάλασσα |
| Asphaltítēs | Greek | Ἀσφαλτίτης |
| Asphaltítis Límnē | Greek | Ἀσφαλτίτις Λίμνη |
| Asphaltítēs Thálassa | Greek | Ἀσφαλτίτης Θάλασσα, |
| Mare Mortuum | Latin | |
| Lacus Asphaltites | Latin |
- Dead Sea in Google Earth
Dead Sea in Google Earth
click on image to explore this site on a new tab in Google Earth
Fig. 20Waves and an unusual line in the Dead Sea, half an hour after the earthquake. Photo was taken from the Qalya coast looking eastwards
(courtesy of C. Barghoorn, Qalya).
Salamon (2005)
- Fig. 1 Map of the 11 Feb. 2004
earthquake sequence from Salamon (2005)
Fig. 1
Map of the 11/2/2004 earthquake sequence and the associated events during the time period 1/1/2003–30/9/ 2004 (GII). Note that much of the activity at that time was concentrated along the eastern margins of the Dead Sea. EMSC and USGS main shock epicenters are also shown. Also shown are the Late Pleistocene (ql) and Holocene (qz) units within the Dead Sea basin (Sneh et al., 1998).
Salamon (2005) - Fig. 21 Ponds along the
Darga coast from Salamon (2005)
Fig. 21
Ponds along the Darga coast, a few meters inland. They seemed to have formed after the earthquake, probably by the run-up wave of the tsunami. Photo was taken in the afternoon after the earthquake.
Salamon (2005)
- Fig. 1 Map of the 11 Feb. 2004
earthquake sequence from Salamon (2005)
Fig. 1
Map of the 11/2/2004 earthquake sequence and the associated events during the time period 1/1/2003–30/9/ 2004 (GII). Note that much of the activity at that time was concentrated along the eastern margins of the Dead Sea. EMSC and USGS main shock epicenters are also shown. Also shown are the Late Pleistocene (ql) and Holocene (qz) units within the Dead Sea basin (Sneh et al., 1998).
Salamon (2005)
Amos Salamon surveyed the western shores of the Dead Sea the day after the 11 February 2004 ML = 5.2 earthquake in the northeastern Dead Sea. Salamon (2005:145) described the earthquake and seismic effects as follows:
A moderate, ML = 5.2, earthquake occurred on 11 February 2004, in the northeastern Dead Sea, at a depth of 17 km. The fault plane solution shows a transtensional mechanism with a sinistral plane that strikes NNW and a dextral plane that trends E–W. Although, in general, this mechanism accords with the nature of the Dead Sea Rift, none of the nodal planes coincides with a known structure in that area. The aftershocks were clustered west of the main shock, along a WNW direction, suggesting the right lateral plane as the preferred rupture plane. If so, this may reflect the seismogenic activity of an intra-basinal structure.Salamon (2005:161) wrote the following about a seiche that appears to have followed the earthquake
The earthquake induced a wealth of ground effects. Exploration of the northwestern Dead Sea coast immediately after the event revealed various phenomena as far as 40 km away from the epicenter, mostly in the soft Holocene deposits: cracks and landslides of different types, a few minor liquefaction occurrences, a tsunami up to a meter high and a rough sea, change of water levels in some wells and in a few sinkholes, and a change in the daily pattern of radon concentration 14 h before the earthquake. Other effects were dust, loud noise, wavy motion of the ground, and shaking palm trees.
Of all units, the Holocene Ze’elim Formation was the most severely affected. It therefore seems to be the weakest geotechnical unit in the region and thus the most vulnerable. Most of the failure effects tend to fade away and become indistinguishable and hence should be detected immediately after the earthquake
Locals at the Qalya coast reported a wave (a run-up?) of up to a meter high and a rough sea in the northern part of the Dead Sea soon after the earthquake. A photograph taken half an hour after the earthquake (courtesy of C. Barghoorn, Qalya) shows a wavy sea near the Qalya shore and also an unusual line in the sea that may have formed just after the earthquake (Fig. 20). Residents at En Gedi, however, did not notice any unusual wave in the sea.
In the afternoon of that day and the day after, we noticed some water ponds, located a few meters inland along the Qalya and the Darga coasts (Fig. 21). In a few places along these coasts, we observed some pebbles lying on top of the washed soft rocks that form the sea shore. Since the sea was nearly flat in the morning and the afternoon of that day, we may presume that the ponds and the pebbles were emplaced by the runup wave of the tsunami.