Regional Heat Flow Analysis Reveals Frictionally Weak Dead Sea Fault

Abstract

The strength of faults was vigorously debated for years, but lately a growing number of studies suggest that faults are weaker than originally suggested. Nonetheless, only a handful of natural faults have been studied in detail, and only one, the San Andreas, is a strike-slip fault. Here, we reanalyze 268 surface heat flow measurements taken in the proximity of the southern Dead Sea Transform fault to evaluate its friction. To account for large terrain relief, and the presence of salt diapirs, we apply 3-D terrain and salt diapir corrections. Based on these corrected heat flow values we estimate that the long-term frictional resistance of the Dead Sea fault is 0.28 ± 0.17. This low value is similar to friction estimates from the San Andreas fault and several subduction zones.