Measurement of Anomalous Radon Gas Emanation Across the Yammouneh Fault in Southern Lebanon: A Possible Approach to Earthquake Prediction

Mohammed A. Kobeissi; Francisco Gomez; Charles Tabet

doi:10.1007/s13753-015-0058-1

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Article Navigation > International Journal of Disaster Risk Science > 2015 > 6(3): 250-266

Mohammed A. Kobeissi, Francisco Gomez, Charles Tabet. Measurement of Anomalous Radon Gas Emanation Across the Yammouneh Fault in Southern Lebanon: A Possible Approach to Earthquake Prediction[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2015, 6(3): 250-266. doi: 10.1007/s13753-015-0058-1

Citation:

Mohammed A. Kobeissi, Francisco Gomez, Charles Tabet. Measurement of Anomalous Radon Gas Emanation Across the Yammouneh Fault in Southern Lebanon: A Possible Approach to Earthquake Prediction[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2015, 6(3): 250-266. doi: 10.1007/s13753-015-0058-1

Citation:

Mohammed A. Kobeissi, Francisco Gomez, Charles Tabet. Measurement of Anomalous Radon Gas Emanation Across the Yammouneh Fault in Southern Lebanon: A Possible Approach to Earthquake Prediction[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2015, 6(3): 250-266. doi: 10.1007/s13753-015-0058-1

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Measurement of Anomalous Radon Gas Emanation Across the Yammouneh Fault in Southern Lebanon: A Possible Approach to Earthquake Prediction

doi: 10.1007/s13753-015-0058-1

1 Lebanese Atomic Energy Commission, Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, Airport Road, Beirut, Lebanon;
2 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA;
3 Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research, Beirut, Lebanon

Funds:

The financial support of the Lebanese National Council for Scientific Research is appreciated. Thanks go to Dr. O. El-Samad for the use of his laboratory for the gamma measurements. We appreciate as well the assistance of the municipality heads of the towns of El-Khiam and Blat. Our deep thanks go to Mr. Rabah Faour and Mr. Sameeh Ramadan for providing their land lots to establish the profile stations. The corresponding author would like to thank Professor H. Gould at Clark University for helping to edit the manuscript and Professor R. Reilinger at MIT for useful comments. The assistance and the hard work of Miss Fatima Jaffal, a graduate student at the Physics Department, Faculty of Sciences of the Lebanese University, is highly appreciated.

Available Online: 2021-04-26

Abstract

Abstract

The eastern Mediterranean region is an active tectonic setting that includes the Dead Sea Transform Fault, which forms the boundary between the African and the Arabian Plates and crosses Lebanon from south to north, striking in a restraining bend around 25–30°NE. The major structural feature in Lebanon is the Yammouneh Fault, which reaches to Syria and southern Turkey in a north–south direction. Measurements of radon gas concentration and exhalation rates in two locations along the southern segment of the Yammouneh Fault in south Lebanon were performed. Two profiles in the El-Khiam basin and Blat pull-apart basin and perpendicular to the Yammouneh Fault trace were analyzed. An approximate fault width 25–30 m wide was determined in the El-Khiam study area. Temporal increase of radon concentration was measured and correlated with stress/strain tectonic activity and stress drops along the studied fault segment boundary. Anomalous variable radon concentrations were detected during one of the measurements where an earthquake occurred in the region of Tiberias Lake in northern Palestine along the Yammouneh Fault in the study area. Measurements of radon concentration along a station’s profile in Blat village did not show any radon anomalous variation due to the discontinuity along the fault (pull-apart), and possible absence of stress and energy accumulation along the Yammouneh Fault line in that location.
- CR-39,
- Detector,
- Earthquake prediction,
- Exhalation rate,
- Lebanon,
- Radon,
- Stress/strain

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References(48)

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