About 550 earthquakes (1.0 _< M L < 5.3) along the Carmel-Tirtza fault, a branching fault of the Jordan-Dead Sea
Transform System, recorded by the Israel Seismograph Network (ISN) between 1984 and 1994 were analyzed. The
seismicity pattern reveals significant activity often confined to known surface traces of active faults or within local grabens. Earthquake clusters are also observed. The seismicity pattern within the Mediterranean seems more diffuse, possibly due to observational inaccuracies and insufficient knowledge of how the Carmel-Tirtza fault system extends towards the northwest.
The seismicity along the Carmel-Tirtza fault system since the beginning of this century is characterized by a b value of
about 0.9. For 15 events with 3.1 _< M L < 5.3 we found seismic moment estimates, M 0, of 0.7 x 1014 < m 0 ~ 1017 Nm and Brune stress drop estimates, A~y, between 0.9 and 16.4 MPa. These characteristics are comparable to those for events
occurring on the main Dead Sea-Jordan Transform fault.
Ten individual earthquake focal mechanisms and three joint focal mechanisms for earthquake clusters have been
obtained. Towards the northeastern part of the Carmel-Tirtza fault system a left-lateral motion seems to dominate, while the seismicity pattern and the focal mechanism solutions near the branching of the Carmel-Tirtza fault and the Dead
Sea-Jordan Rift suggest the present-day existence of a complicated tectonic regime. Stress inversion assuming one stress
tensor for the whole region indicates NNE-SSW extension and WNW-ESE compression.