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Paleoearthquakes as Anchor Points in Bayesian Radiocarbon Deposition Models: A Case Study from the Dead Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Elisa J Kagan ,
Mordechai Stein ,
Amotz Agnon  and
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Elisa J Kagan*
Affiliation:
Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel, Jerusalem 95501, Israel
Mordechai Stein
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel, Jerusalem 95501, Israel
Amotz Agnon
Affiliation:
Institute of Earth Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Christopher Bronk Ramsey
Affiliation:
Research Laboratory for Archaeology & the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
*
Corresponding author. Email: elisa.kagan@mail.huji.ac.il.
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Abstract

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The Bayesian statistical method of the OxCal v 4.1 program is used to construct an age-depth model for a set of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon ages of organic debris collected from a late Holocene Dead Sea stratigraphic section (the Ein Feshkha Nature Reserve). The model is tested for a case where no prior earthquake information is applied and for a case where there is incorporation of known ages of 4 prominent historical earthquakes as chronological anchor points along the section. While the anchor-based model provided a tightly constrained age-depth regression, the “non-anchored” model still produces a correlation where most of the 68% or 95% age ranges of the 52 seismites can be correlated to historical earthquakes. This presents us with the opportunity for high-resolution paleoseismic analysis and comparison between various sites.

Type
Calibration, Data Analysis, and Statistical Methods
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 52 , Issue 3: 20th Int. Radiocarbon Conference Proceedings , 2010 , pp. 1018 - 1026
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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