Dead Sea shoreline facies with seismically-induced soft-sediment deformation structures, Israel

The lowering of the Dead Sea level in the last seventy years has resulted in significant entrenchment along its shores. Exposed sections reveal an interbedding of facies representing abrupt environmental changes. The paleoenvironments are reconstructed based on field relations between the various facies types. Four environments are differentiated: (1) a terrigenous influx, (2) a shallow lacustrine zone, (3) a beach, and (4) a prograding fan-delta environment. The Dead Sea is a quiet-water basin with a relatively high earthquake probability and thus holds an excellent potential for the formation of seismites. The newly exposed stratigraphic sequences within the fan deltas contain soft sediment deformation structures that fit the criteria for "seismites" the deformations are stratigraphically-sandwiched between undeformed layers, show a wide lateral extent, and cyclic repetitions of the load structures are frequent. The deformation structures are found in liquefiable silty-muddy-sandy deposits which comprise a clear textural marker. Radiocarbon dating in one studied section provided age ranges from 2120 ± 40 yr BP (GrA-14261) to 860 ± 40 yr BP (GrA-14265).