Seismic reflection profiles across the southern Dead Sea basin

Abstract

The main structural and stratigraphic elements that form the Southern Dead Sea basin (SDSB), which is part of the Dead Sea transform fault system, have been broadly delineated with various degrees of certainty by a number of researchers. The recent exchange of seismic data between Israel and Jordan enable us to fill in some of the dashed lines and eliminate some of the question marks that appear on the previously published geological cross-sections. Two east–west seismic time sections, one from each side of the international border that dissect the basin, have been selected, composed and interpreted. A remarkable correlation of the three major sedimentary sequences that form the basin-fill (Miocene clastics, Pliocene salt and Pleistocene–Holocene clastics and evaporites) has been established between the lines and, hence, across the entire width of the SDSB. The Miocene and Pliocene series are cut off in the east by the Ghor–Safi fault that is the equivalent of the western Sedom fault, thus, indicating that all three major structural steps, known to exist in the west: (1) rim block, (2) intermediate block and (3) deep block, occurs also in the east, and that the SDSB is indeed a full graben. The Ghor Safi fault is the northern extension of the major Arava strike-slip fault. The very thin Miocene (if at all) and lack of Pliocene salt in the eastern intermediate block, unlike the western one, suggests that the Ghor–Safi fault was initiated earlier then the Sedom fault. Salt is present over the entire width of the basin but does not exceed the 900 m that were penetrated by the Sedom Deep-1 borehole. The salt is conformable with the overlying thick Pleistocene and except for the Sedom diapir, no halokinesis phenomena have been recognized to be associated with both units.