Articles | Volume 25, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2197-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-25-2197-2025
Research article
 | 
04 Jul 2025
Research article |  | 04 Jul 2025

Dynamic fragility of a slender rock pillar in a carbonate rock mass

Alaa Jbara and Michael Tsesarsky

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Cited articles

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Agnon, A.: Pre-Instrumental Earthquakes Along the Dead Sea Rift, in: Dead Sea Transform Fault System: Reviews, edited by: Garfunkel, Z., Ben-Avraham, Z., and Kagan, E., Springer, 207–262, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8872-4_8, 2014. 
Ambraseys, N., Melville, C. P., and Adams, R. D.: The seismicity of Egypt, Arabia and the Red Sea: a historical review, Cambridge University Press, 180 pp., ISBN: 9780521020251, 2005. 
Ancheta, T. D., Darragh, R. B., Stewart, J. P., Seyhan, E., Silva, W. J., Chiou, B. S. J., Wooddell, K. E., Graves, R. W., Kottke, A. R., Boore, D. M., Kishida, T., and Donahue, J. L.: PEER NGA-West2 Database, PEER Report 2013-03, Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center, https://peer.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/2013_03_ancheta_7.3.2020.pdf (last access: 1 July 2025), 2013.  
Anderson, J. G., Brune, J. N., Biasi, G., Anooshehpoor, A., and Purvance, M.: Workshop Report: Applications of Precarious Rocks and Related Fragile Geological Features to U.S. National Hazard Maps, Seismol. Res. Lett., 82, 431–441, https://doi.org/10.1785/gssrl.82.3.431, 2011. 
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Short summary
Fragile geologic features test long-term seismic hazard models. We modeled a free-standing 42 m high rock pillar in Israel’s Negev Desert using a validated finite-element model based on aerial lidar, in situ rock data, and measured vibrations. Dynamic analysis shows an M 7 quake on the Dead Sea Transform (45 km) will not break it, but an M 6 quake on the Sinai–Negev Shear Zone (6–20 km) probably will. With a fragility age of 11.4 kyr, the pillar challenges the SNSZ’s (Sinai–Negev Shear Zone) ability to produce M 6 events.
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