Yossef H Hatzor

The paper presents some observations on a fracture zone formed recently in the eastern part of the northern Negev, Israel. The study area is located within the Zin syncline, which is part of the Syrian Arc fold system. This is an asymmetric syncline found between the Hazera monocline and Mahmal anticline, 10 km west of the Dead Sea rift valley margins. The folds in this area, mainly monoclines and asymmetric synclines, initiated in the Upper Cretaceous and continued developing at least to the Middle Miocene or Pliocene. These monoclines were formed by displacement along reverse faults, as evidenced by repetitions of the stratigraphic sequence in boreholes drilled in five monoclinal crests and interpretation of seismic profiles. The stress field under which these folds were formed, S_Hmax trending WNW-ESE and S_hmin trending NNE-SSW, has been called the Syrian Arc stress field. -from Authors