Powerful earthquake could hit Israel within a decade
Dead Sea research reveals a pattern of tremors indicating that we are living in a tectonically active period.
Drilling barge in the Dead Sea, 2010.Photo courtesy of Tel Aviv University
As if Israelis didn’t have enough to worry about with Covid-19 and threats from enemies like Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, now Israeli researchers are warning that a devastating earthquake measuring at least 6.5 on the Richter scale is expected to hit the region in the coming years.
The dire prediction comes from drilling in the Dead Sea to analyze some 220,000 years of underwater geology.
Scientists Worry Mideast Is Threatened By Powerful Future Earthquake
Scientists Worry Mideast Is Threatened By Powerful Future Earthquake
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Israelis can add natural disasters to their current worries about COVID-19 and threats from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Now, Israeli researchers are warning a devastating earthquake measuring at least 6.5 on the Richter scale is expected to hit the region in the coming years.
The dire prediction comes from drilling in the Dead Sea to analyze some 220,000 years of underwater geology.
According to the researchers’ analysis, a strong earthquake occurs every 130 to 150 years, although there have also been lulls of a few decades between them.
Credit: Tel Aviv University
A first-of-its-kind study conducted under the bed of the Dead Sea reveals that a devastating earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale is expected to hit our region in the coming years. The study showed that an earthquake of this magnitude occurs in the land of Israel on an average cycle of between 130 and 150 years, but there have been cases in history where the lull between one earthquake and another was only a few decades long.
The last earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 on the Richter scale was felt in the Dead Sea valley in 1927, when hundreds of people were injured in Amman, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and even Jaffa. Now, in the wake of the findings of the study, the researchers are warning that another earthquake is very likely to occur in our lifetime, in the coming years or decades.
As part of the study, the research was carried out under the auspices of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), which conducts deep drilling in lake beds all over the world with the aim of studying Earth’s ancient climate and other environmental changes.
In 2010, a rig was placed in the center of the Dead Sea and began drilling to a depth of hundreds of meters, enabling an analysis of some 220,000 years of Dead Sea geology.
According to Prof. Marco, because the Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth, every winter, the flood waters that flow into the Dead Sea carry with them sediment which accumulates at the bottom of the lake into different layers.