Abstract:

The 500-billion-dollar NEOM mega-project and the planned King Salman Crossing (bridge) are in the Gulf of Aqaba area where the largest earthquakes in Saudi Arabia can be expected. The gulf forms the southernmost part of the 1000-km long Dead Sea strike-slip fault system, which borders the north-moving Arabian plate to the west. The planned King Salman Crossing will go directly across the southern part of the gulf and thus across this plate-boundary fault, but little has been known about its past earthquake activity. To advance knowledge on the earthquake hazard in the region, we have been leading interdisciplinary research activities in the area for several years, which have consisted of research cruises, fieldwork campaigns, satellite data processing, and earthquake simulations, among other things. We now know where the main faults are, got new information on past major earthquakes, know how fast the faults are being loaded for the next major events and have simulated shaking levels in possible future earthquakes. We have also extended some of this research to cover the entire Dead Sea transform and the large earthquake doublet (magnitude 7.8 and 7.6) in south-central Turkey in 2023. These earthquakes put our project into the spotlight in Saudi Arabia and questions were asked like "what is the worst-case scenario for the Gulf of Aqaba and NEOM?" and "can we have a tragedy in Saudi Arabia similar to what just occurred in Turkey? Together the project results help to constrain possible future scenarios, i.e., where major earthquakes will likely take place, how frequent and large they may be and provide information about how strong shaking can be expected in NEOM and at other locations, which is critical information for infrastructure design for NEOM and the King Salman Crossing.

About the speaker:

Prof. Sigurjón Jónsson grew up among volcanoes and earthquakes in northern Iceland and went on to study Geophysics at the University of Iceland, from where he received both a bachelor's and a master's degree in the subject. He earned his doctoral degree in Geophysics and a master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2002. After graduation, Prof. Jónsson was a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University and a senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. From 2009 he has been with the Earth Science and Engineering program at KAUST, first as Associate Professor of Geophysics and since 2016 as Professor. During his career, he has been interested in volcanic and seismic processes, and used crustal deformation observations (satellite radar interferometric imaging in particular) to gain insight into the subsurface activity. At KAUST, Prof. Jónsson leads the crustal deformation and InSAR research group.

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