Salt karst and tectonics: sinkholes development along tension cracks between parallel strike‐slip faults, Dead Sea, Jordan

Abstract

This work deals with the tectonic interpretation of an alignment of more than 300 sinkholes stretching along the Jordanian coast of the Dead Sea, Ghor Al Haditha area. Its dimensions are 6 km long with a width of 600 m. Sinkholes appeared during the last decades as a consequence of the very rapid lowering of the lake level. The linear shape was inferred from ground collapse inventories carried out between 1991 and 2008. The lineament is replaced and analyzed in its structural setting at regional and local scales. Its direction (N 24°E) is sub-parallel to the ones displayed by many focal mechanisms, especially the one associated with the earthquake of the 23 April, 1979 (mb = 5·1; N 20° E ± 5°), which is representative of all focal mechanisms calculated on a fault plane compatible with the general direction of the Jordan-Dead Sea Transform fault system for the east coast of the Dead Sea area.The alignment of sinkholes is constituted by 13 minor linear segments separated by as many empty spaces. Four minor linear units present an en-echelon arrangement from which one can deduce the presence of a local extensional stress field. In this context, the sinkhole locations provide information of subsurface discontinuities interpreted as hidden fractures. In a close future, such results could support the work of decision-makers and engineers in the projected development of the area.

Salt-dissolution-induced subsidence in the Dead Sea area detected by applying interferometric techniques to ALOS Palsar Synthetic Aperture Radar images

“…10), at the place where the second epicenter is located. Recently [21] it has been shown that the direction of the sinkhole alignment in Ghor Al Haditha is consistent with the fault plane deduced from the focal mechanism of the most important instrumental earthquake located in the Lisan area in the past decades: i.e. the Mb =5.1 (N 20 E ± 5 deg) earthquake of April 23, 1979.…”

“…However, the difference is probably not so important because Ghor Al Haditha is a farming area and many sinkholes have been filled to avoid incidents. The missing information is however confined inside the damaged zone [21]. The comparison at the same scale clearly shows that the sinkholes follow very similar trends in both areas.…”

Structural analysis of S-wave seismics around an urban sinkhole: evidence of enhanced dissolution in a strike-slip fault zone

“…A lineament of sinkholes can also be used to find hidden faults (Closson and Abou Karaki, 2009). This is the case in Schmalkalden, since the only sinkhole in the urban area formed within the strongly fractured HFZ.…”

“…Fractures and faults can serve as fluid pathways that allow the water to flow through the subsurface and thus generate cavities. A number of authors have pointed out that there is a causal connection between strike-slip faults and sinkholes (Heubeck et al, 2004;Closson and Abou Karaki, 2009;Gabbianelli et al, 2009;Del Prete et al, 2010;Lunina et al, 2016). Strike-slip fault zones with different internal types of fault sense (reverse, normal and strike-slip) are most likely to produce a fine mosaic of small fault blocks that allow groundwater to move freely, thus creating an area of subsidence.…”

Mechanism of groundwater inrush hazard caused by solution mining in a multilayered rock-salt-mining area: a case study in Tongbai, China

“…(Hao et al, 2010;Gao, 2012). However, due to the particularity of the solutionmining method and the complex chemical-physical reactions during the high-pressure and -temperature mining process, research regarding solution mining were mainly focused on mining techniques (Jiang and Jiang, 2004;Kotwica, 2008;Namin et al, 2009), mining cavity stability analysis and sinkhole problems (Staudtmeister and Rokahr, 1997;Bonetto et al, 2008;Ezersky et al, 2009;Goldscheider and Bechtel, 2009;Closson and Abou Karaki, 2009;Vigna et al, 2010;Frumkin et al, 2011;Ezersky and Frumkin, 2013;Qiu, 2011;Blachowski et al, 2014) and geohazards, particularly in karst areas due to man-made underground caving (Waltham and Fookes 2003;Parise and Gunn 2007;Zhou and Beck 2011;Parise and Lollino 2011;Lollino et al, 2013;Gutierrez et al, 2014;Parise et al, 2015) but rarely on source and channel analysis of water inrush in a solution-mining accident.…”