Search

Surface heat flow in southern Jordan (western part of the Arabian Plate) was determined in a dense cluster of five, up to 900-m-deep boreholes that have encountered sedimentary rocks of Paleozoic (Ordovician and Silurian) age. These rocks are underlain by an igneous and metamorphic basement, which has been studied for its radiogenic heat production, along the eastern margin of the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. The heat flow, calculated from continuous temperature logs and laboratory-measured thermal conductivity of drillcores and surface samples, averages to 60.3 ± 3.4 mW m −2 and contrasts the common view of the late Proterozoic-consolidated Arabian Shield constituting a low heat-flow province of ⩽45 mW m −2 . Although only characterizing an area of about 300 km 2 , this average is unlikely representing a positive local anomaly caused by voluminous HHP granites/rhyolites at shallow depths. Instead, a heat flow of 60 mW m −2 is considered a robust estimate of the Phanerozoic conductive surface heat flow not only for Jordan, but for the Arabian Shield in areas unaffected by younger reactivation. The large variation in conductive heat flow (36–88 mW m −2 ) previously observed in Jordan, southern Syria, and Saudi Arabia is irreconcilable with their broad similarity in lithosphere structure and composition and rather reflects a combination of factors including low-quality temperature data and insufficient knowledge on thermal rock properties.

Fault zones are the locations where motion of tectonic plates, often associated with earthquakes, is accommodated. Despite a rapid increase in the understanding of faults in the last decades, our knowledge of their geometry, petrophysical properties, and controlling processes remains incomplete. The central questions addressed here in our study of the Dead Sea Transform (DST) in the Middle East are as follows: (1) What are the structure and kinematics of a large fault zone? (2) What controls its structure and kinematics? (3) How does the DST compare to other plate boundary fault zones? The DST has accommodated a total of 105 km of left-lateral transform motion between the African and Arabian plates since early Miocene (similar to 20 Ma). The DST segment between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, called the Arava/Araba Fault (AF), is studied here using a multidisciplinary and multiscale approach from the mu m to the plate tectonic scale. We observe that under the DST a narrow, subvertical zone cuts through crust and lithosphere. First, from west to east the crustal thickness increases smoothly from 26 to 39 km, and a subhorizontal lower crustal reflector is detected east of the AF. Second, several faults exist in the upper crust in a 40 km wide zone centered on the AF, but none have kilometer-size zones of decreased seismic velocities or zones of high electrical conductivities in the upper crust expected for large damage zones. Third, the AF is the main branch of the DST system, even though it has accommodated only a part (up to 60 km) of the overall 105 km of sinistral plate motion. Fourth, the AF acts as a barrier to fluids to a depth of 4 km, and the lithology changes abruptly across it. Fifth, in the top few hundred meters of the AF a locally transpressional regime is observed in a 100-300 m wide zone of deformed and displaced material, bordered by subparallel faults forming a positive flower structure. Other segments of the AF have a transtensional character with small pull-aparts along them. The damage zones of the individual faults are only 5-20 m wide at this depth range. Sixth, two areas on the AF show mesoscale to microscale faulting and veining in limestone sequences with faulting depths between 2 and 5 km. Seventh, fluids in the AF are carried downward into the fault zone. Only a minor fraction of fluids is derived from ascending hydrothermal fluids. However, we found that on the kilometer scale the AF does not act as an important fluid conduit. Most of these findings are corroborated using thermomechanical modeling where shear deformation in the upper crust is localized in one or two major faults; at larger depth, shear deformation occurs in a 20-40 km wide zone with a mechanically weak decoupling zone extending subvertically through the entire lithosphere.