SODOM AND GOMORRAH AND PLATES TECTONIC

: A Geomorphologic-tectonic study is done by the author about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the Death Sea. is has been a subject of several studies over the centuries. Bible studies that focus on scientiﬁc studies today. A geomorphologic approximation is carried out by the author determining the tectonic reasons that causes the destruction and disappearance of these cities.


Introduction
e destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah described in the Bible has always been a subject of interest not only religious but also scientific.In fact, from a geomorphologic point of view, the place where these cities were found allows an analysis of this chaotic event that happened some 5,000 years ago.
According to the Biblical writings, Sodom, Gomorrah as well as Zebim, Segor and Adma were cities located in the southern sector on the shores of the Dead Sea near the Lisaan Peninsula.Indeed the Dead Sea is a vast tectonic depression that is located between -118 meters to 378 meters (387 to 1240) where the Jordan River flows, forming a endorrheic basin of about 41,650 km² (16081sqm)|of which the Dead Sea occupies about 810 km² (313sqm).(J.P. Bergoeing 2016) Dead Sea naturally occupies the space of a tectonic depression, product of the slide and separation of the African and Arab plates sliding faults, which have produced an area of accretion where the magma of the upper mantle has come to cover the separate space product of the tectonic thrusts.During the Jurassic and Cretaceous, the sector was covered by the Mediterranean Sea and closes during the Miocene, when the Arabic plate collides with the Eurasian tectonic plate creating the current tectonic depression, as well as the mountains of Judea and Mount Carmel in Israel and It extends through the Golan Heights to Lebanon through the Antilebanon Mountains, to Syria.e culminating point is Mount Hermon of 2,814 meters (9.232.3) of altitude.In the Pleistocene, the future tectonic depression become free from the seawater of the previous geological periods, and the tectonic depression or grabben begins its process of sinking and subsequent filling with the waters of the surrounding rivers starting what will become the Dead Sea.For Graham Brew (Brew et al. 2001) the Dead Sea transforming faults system was originated during the Neo-etis, with the collision of the African and Arab plates colliding with the European plate in Turkey giving rise to a Sinister transforming fault that moves to the South in the West strip, while the Eastern parallel plate is Dextral and moves Northward both in a distance of 107 km 66.5m.For these authors there are two important episodes; a first one, during the Miocene (displacement of the faults of 65 km (40,4m) and another in the Pliocene to our days (displacement of the faults in a distance covering 42 km (26.1m).

THE DEAD SEA
From a Paleo-climatic point of view, the Dead Sea was desiccated about 125,000 years ago during the Riss-Würm inter-Glacial period, (Sangamonian in the US).Subsequently, the Lake decreased its surface during the Holocene, since 12,000 years ago, at the end of the Würm glaciation, (Wisconsin in the US), both for climate changes and for human settlements in its outskirts, having extracted water for agriculture and consumption Staff thus starting the salinity conditions that we know today.
us is how the international team of scientists, with Professor Emi Ito of the University of Minnesota, and Steven Goldstein of the Lamont-Doherty Terrestrial Observatory of Columbia University, in the United States, carried out a perforation under the Dead Sea bed 275 meters deep.e inner strata of the sample, of a thickness of 230 meters, show evidence of the drought periods of this lake sector during the Paleo-climatic periods of aridity already described and that reach some 200,000 years.(Mordechai et al 2011)  However Professor Eugene H.Merrill (Merril, 2012).disagrees with the identification of Sodom in Tel El-Hammam as it opposes the biblical chronology.In reality Sodom, Gomorrah as well as Zebím, Segor and Adma were cities, located in the South sector on the shores of the Dead Sea, near Lisaan Peninsula, and therefore does not agree its location with Tel El-Hammam

THE DESTRUCTION OF SODOM AND GOMORRAH
Without opposing the biblical account of divine punishment this might well has occurred using the Earth's forces that characterize the place.So it would not be strange that a revival of the sliding tectonic faults of the sector, with separation of them, have allowed rise magma something similar to the zone of the Atlantic accretion area which has given rise to volcanic islands like Iceland, for example.In the case of the Dead Sea, the fall of "fire and sulfur" described in the biblical account would be a volcanic eruption mostly gaseous of pyroclastic flows and sulfur, which put an end to all the inhabitants of this great Tectonic-Lake depression for its sudden and unpredictable speed.It should be noted that in this sector there are two tar fields, also known as the Judean bitumen.
However Professor John S. Lewis Emeritus Professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona postulates the theory, published in his book "Rain of Fire and Ice: e very real treat of Comet and asteroid Bombardment" (Lewis, 2012) that Sodom, Gomorrah and the Adjacent cities were destroyed by a cosmic bombardment.e rain of fire and sulfur fallen from the sky can be the fall of a meteorite.In this case it's necessary to find tektites traces, but till now, they are absent from the soil.
Finally we can quote British scientist Graham Harris ( 2001) who explains the destruction of the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah due to the outbreak of flammable methane bags that are in the subsoil and that would have been expelled by the Earthquake occurred 4500 years ago.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
It is clear that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah from a religious or biblical point of view could be more consistent with destruction by an asteroid directed directly to that place by the hand of God.However, a sudden cracking eruption of the volcano-gaseous pyroclastic type flows (also known as burning Clouds), by reactivation of the sliding faults sector cannot be abandoned and is more plausible because the area is subject to the Plate tectonics movements that still being active in that sector till today.
Recent studies carried out in the Dead Sea sector in particular by Professor Mustapha Meghraoui of the University of Strasbourg, France, (Meghraoui, 2015) have shown that throughout the centuries devastating earthquakes have affected the sector Highlighting those of the years 551, 1157, 1170, 1202, 1408 and 1837.is makes it possible to affirm that this sector is highly seismic and that Sodom and Gomorrah cities built with Adobes did not resist this type of seismicity.(Masson et alt. 2015).Nor is it excluded that pyroclastic flows from the mantle may have emerged through these tectonic failures.
Further South, the Western sector of the Arabian Peninsula, on its coastal side, is formed by a series of Pleistocene and Holocene, very recent volcanoes.Even Mecca, is seated on Holocene volcanic cones, which shows that this large sector that starts in northern Syria and whose prolongation is the African Ri has important and current tectonic and volcanic sequences.(Bergoeing 2012).

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1African and Arabian tectonic plates colliding with the European plate, and forming a system of sliding tectonic faults.e Arabian plate slides North as the African plate makes it Southward.e Red Sea was formed during the Miocene and an important volcanism characterizes the western sector of the Arab Peninsula during the Pleistocene .In this figure lies the Dead Sea which is a tectonic depression product o landslides in opposite directions of the African and Arab plates.(Bergoeing,2016).(Bergoeing,2016

FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3eological cut of the Dead Sea, located in a Miocene tectonic depression and resting on a base of granite and basalts on which more recent calcareous sedimentary rocks overlap.e Western bleed fault moves Southward while the eastern transforming fault is headed North.HernánToledo, 2016