Ghor Al Haditha Sinkholes Database and Tectonic Interpretation

This work deals with the creation of a sinkholes database for the Jordanian coast of the Dead Sea, Ghor Al Haditha area. Ground collapses inventories were carried out between 1991 and 2012. 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 most published focal mechanisms in that zone especially the one associated to the 23rd April 1979 earthquake (Mb = 5.1; N 20 E +- 5 deg, Arieh et al 1982), 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 thirteen minor linear segments separated by as many empty spaces. Their organization suggests the existence of a rotational effect caused by stress between two parallel strike-slip faults. 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, sinkholes locations provide information of subsurface discontinuities interpreted as hidden fractures.