Location map. A. Tectonic plates in the Middle East. B. The Jordan Valley section of the Dead Sea Transform fault on a shaded relief (from Hall 1998). C. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) basin and the faults around it.
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The A.D. 749 earthquake, Dead Sea transform
Moshe Hartal, Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem
Nissim Hazan, Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Lilach Lev, Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University
Mordechai Stein, The Geological Survey of Israel
Publication: Geology, 31(8) 2003, pg. 665-668 (pdf file)
Historical records of earthquakes can significantly contribute to understanding active faulting and seismic hazards. However, pre–twentieth century historians were unaware of the association of earthquakes and fault ruptures. Consequently, historical texts usually report the time and damage caused by earthquakes but not the associated faults. Conversely, observed fault ruptures are often difficult to date. In order to overcome these difficulties we have analyzed archaeological and sedimentological observations in recent excavations in the ancient city of Tiberias and have combined them with interpretation of historical accounts. Tiberias was founded in A.D. 19 by King Herod on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret). Herod’s stadium, exposed for the first time, was damaged by boulder-bearing flashfloods and again by an earthquake. Later buildings, dated up to the early eighth century, are all covered by alluvium and lake deposits (table of historical periods). They are also damaged and offset by normal faults, whereas buildings from the late eighth century are intact. We therefore attribute the damage to the earthquake of 18 January 749. The paleoseismic observations are in good agreement with the distribution of damage, on the basis of historical records. Both data sets indicate a 100-km-long rupture segment between the Kinneret and the Dead Sea pull-apart basins, demonstrating that it is capable of generating M > 7 earthquakes.
Information on the dating of the 749 earthquake is found here.
For further discussion and analysis of historical data:
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Location map. A. Tectonic plates in the Middle East. B. The Jordan Valley section of the Dead Sea Transform fault on a shaded relief (from Hall 1998). C. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) basin and the faults around it. |
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Views of Lake Kinneret and the Ottoman wall of Tiberias.
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Looking northward at the excavation site of Galei Kinneret. Alluvium covers Byzantine walls. Note a fault near the left corner of the first excavated square. |
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A normal fault offsets alluvial layers by 45 cm.
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Open fractures cross the oval sector of the Roman stadium wall and the overlying Byzantine walls. The boulder on the right was carried by a flash-flood, which damaged the stadium. The It is incorporated into the Byzantine wall to the right.
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The archaeological site of Galei Kinneret was destroyed in order to build a new section for the adjacent hotel. The Antiquities Authority was not interested in preserving the site except for the stadium. The destruction works bared a tilted Byzantine building, which overly the fault. Note the coarse alluvium, which includes large boulders.
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The normal fault, which is noticed in the sediments at the middle lower part of the photograph (below the left end of the scale), caused the tilting of a Byzantine building. |
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Moshe Hartal (right) led the excavations of the Galei Kinneret site.
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Early Roman period |
37 BC-132 AD |
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Herod and his sons' reign |
37 BC-70 AD |
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Late Roman period |
132-324 AD |
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Byzantine period |
324-638 AD |
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Early Arabic period |
638-1099 AD |
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Crusader and Ayubic |
1099-1291 AD |
Learn more on history here
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