When people think of Israel, volcanoes are not the first thing that comes to mind.
Yet, in the Middle East, several other countries have volcanoes which recently erupted, such
as Saudi Arabia.
One of its volcanoes, Harrat Rahat, nearly destroyed the city of Medina in 1256 when
it covered a vast area with lava.
Another volcano in Syria, known as Es Safa, erupted quite recently in 1850.
With all of this being said, Israel also contains an active volcanic field.
The volcanic field in question is known as the Golan Heights, which is located in the
northeast section of the country.
If you look around the border with Syria, you can find several young looking cinder
cones such as Mount Bental.
This individual volcanic cone last erupted a mere 50,000 years ago.
Yet, even younger vents exist from this volcano, meaning that this area is quite likely to
produce another volcanic eruption in the future.
The Golan Heights volcanic field encompasses an area of 3,700 square kilometers with recent
volcanic activity in both Israel and Syria.
This unusual volcanic field exists due to a very large transform fault which is quite
similar to the San Andreas fault in California.
The fault in question runs through the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee.
To the east of this fault, the crust is slowly moving in a northward direction.
To the west of this fault, the crust is moving to the south.
This long term movement has allowed for magma in the mantle to use the fault as a point
of least resistance, eventually erupting on the surface as a chain of volcanoes.
The earliest phase of activity began 5 million years ago, when a series of vents erupted
around the Sea of Galilee.
The lava which erupted had a very low viscosity, so it quickly flowed downhill at a speed of
10 to 15 kilometers per hour.
As a result, these early eruptions built a series of plateaus which had very gentle slopes.
The high points on these plateaus, such as the area overlooking Tiberias, represent highly
eroded vents.
Eventually, eruptions moved into the area now associated with the Golan Heights.
These eruptions originated from low prominence vents and covered much of the area in moderately
thick layers of black lava between 2 million years ago and 900,000 years ago.
Beginning around 800,000 years ago, eruptions became more explosive, and began building
cinder cones via eruptions which produced intermittent explosions of ash and lava, much
like seen at the ongoing eruption of La Palma in the Canary Islands.
These cinder cone forming eruptions originated along a straight line of activity, representing
an underlying fissure.
Between 750,000 and 130,000 years ago, 7 cinder cones formed along this line of activity.
One of these, known as Mount Avital, is actually the combination of two cinder cones and one
explosion crater.
However, the largest volcanic eruption in this field originated 129,000 years ago, when
a volume of basaltic lava intruded into the crust.
The heat from this magma caused a large section of underlying groundwater to flash to steam.
Eventually, the steam reached a critical point, and the ground exploded upwards in what is
termed a phreatic eruption.
Pyroclastic flows soon raced across the landscape, and a thick cloud of superheated rock buried
areas adjacent to the eruption in up to 50 meters of ash.
Once the dust cleared what remained was an 850 meter wide and 1,150 meter long crater.
This crater would later be filled with water, and called Ram Lake.
Since the creation of this crater, several small eruptions have occurred in the vicinity,
such as the eruption 50,000 years ago at Mount Bental which produced a small lava flow to
the west.
Since then, only minimal activity has occurred, producing small flows of lava near the town
of Harfa.
As of 2021, this volcanic field is in one of its long term periods of inactivity.
This phase of dormancy will likely last for another several thousand years, only to be
broken by the eruption of a new cinder cone.
Such a new eruption would originate along one of two fissures which are outlined on
screen.
Such an eruption would produce slow moving lava flows which could travel up to 10 kilometers
distant.
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