High-Resolution Seismic Imaging of the Continental Slope offshore Israel: A Detailed Investigation of the Goliath Mass  Movement Complex and the Dor Disturbance.

The research is a detailed geophysical investigation of submarine landslides and sediment transport mechanisms along the Israeli continental slope. The project uses very high resolution seismic and bathymetric data sets. Novel interpretation techniques are applied to determine the dynamics of mass-movements complex events and the spatial-temporal controls of sediment transport mechanisms. 

Omri’s work contributes to the efforts geo-hazard risks assessment offshore Israel and to the general understanding of mass movements complex dynamics.  

Current results present: 

• An inventory of open slope recently active landslide scars along the continental slope. The research found a correlation between the scar’s  size to their distance from the margin’s sediment source (Figure 1).  

•  A retrogressive mass movement complex with an estimated recurrence interval of 3000 years (spanning the last ~15 ka) offshore central Israel (Figure 2). 

• An example of thin skinned tectonics offshore central Israel, with several catastrophic faulting events, exhibiting ~20 m offset (Figure 3).

• Newly identified 33 vertically stacked bedforms Offshore southern Israel which are correlated to climatic changes in the past ~460 ka (Figures 4 and 5)

Figure 1: Submarine landslides scares and size along the Israeli continental slope

Figure 2: A retrogressive mass movement complex, recurrence interval of ~3000 years