Geophysical Research Letters - 2021 - Lu - Orbital- and Millennial-Scale Changes in LakeLevels Facilitate Earthquake-Triggered Mass Failures in the Dead Sea Basin.pdf
Dead Sea; mass failures; preconditioning factors; sea-level change; sedimentation rate; triggers; Accurate testing; Cause-and-effect relationships; Dead sea basins; Large amplitude; Mass failures; Sedimentation rates; Statistical evaluation; Submarine mass failure; Geophysics; Earth and Planetary Sciences (all); General Earth and Planetary Sciences
Abstract :
[en] The possible link between the occurrence of submarine mass failure and climate-driven factors is highly disputed. This is due largely to the lack of comprehensive records of mass failures in the geologic record for which ages, triggers, and preconditioning factors can be reliably constrained. Such controls would allow accurate testing of cause-and-effect relationships. We present a record that comprises 490 earthquake-triggered mass failure deposits from the Dead Sea depocenter over the past 220 kyr that permits a robust statistical evaluation and correlation with potential preconditioning factors. Our data set reveals that (a) at the orbital- and millennial-scale, variable sedimentation rates are not a preconditioning factor for these mass failure deposits; (b) at the centennial-to decadal-scale, earthquake-triggered mass failures can occur at any lake-level state; (c) at the orbital- and millennial-scale, the mass failures are more frequent when lake-levels were high and punctuated by large-amplitude fluctuations.
Disciplines :
Earth sciences & physical geography
Author, co-author :
Lu, Yin ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Géomorphologie et Géologie du Quaternaire ; Institute of Geology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
Moernaut, Jasper ; Institute of Geology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
Waldmann, Nicolas ; Department of Marine Geosciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Bookman, Revital; Department of Marine Geosciences, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Ian Alsop, G. ; Department of Geology & Geophysics, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom
FWF - Austrian Science Fund ISF - Israel Science Foundation
Funding text :
The authors appreciate the editor L. Flesch for handling our manuscript, Ed Pope and Sebastian Cardona for constructive reviews. This research was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): M 2817 to Y. Lu and P30285‐N34 to J. Moernaut, the University of Liege under Special Funds for Research, IPD‐STEMA Program (R.DIVE.0899‐J‐F‐G to Y. Lu), the Israel Science Foundation (#1645/19 to S. Marco and #1093/10 to R. Bookman), and the ICDP. A.A. is indebted to the Helmholtz Virtual Institute DESERVE for support. The authors thank C. Daxer for help modeling the Kernel Density and Nadav Wetzler for discussion.The authors appreciate the editor L. Flesch for handling our manuscript, Ed Pope and Sebastian Cardona for constructive reviews. This research was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): M 2817 to Y. Lu and P30285-N34 to J. Moernaut, the University of Liege under Special Funds for Research, IPD-STEMA Program (R.DIVE.0899-J-F-G to Y. Lu), the Israel Science Foundation (#1645/19 to S. Marco and #1093/10 to R. Bookman), and the ICDP. A.A. is indebted to the Helmholtz Virtual Institute DESERVE for support. The authors thank C. Daxer for help modeling the Kernel Density and Nadav Wetzler for discussion.
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