Abstract. The Arava valley is located at the southern part of the Dead Sea Rift (DSR). The continuous long-term tectonic activity in the area of Evrona fault zone, southern Arava valley, is evident with abundant geological expressions, while the neotectonic activity is not very clear on the surface. Furthermore, surficial inspection may give the impression that this prominent transform plate-boundary hardly produces meaningful evidence for recent tectonic activity.However, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) imaging, which has been conducted across the Evrona fault zone up to a depth of approximately 25 meters below the surface, reveals a dense inhomogeneous distribution of subsurface discontinuities. These hundreds of discontinuities per a kilometer length of GPR profile can be interpreted as sets of fractures and faults, with a variety of dip-slips, spatial orientations and depths. Another unique GPR observation reveals that the density of faults increases as a function of depth at the first 25 m. Moreover, the apparent dips of the faults suggest that they merge at a depth of a few tens of meters. This is confirmed by Shallow Seismic Reflection (SSR) observations conducted at the same locations, which generally identify a parent fault below group of faults that are detected by the GPR. According to both seismic and radar observations, a typical single active fault which is traced through the top hundred meters, changes its characteristics abruptly as it reaches a depth range of about 35-20 m below the surface. It then proceeds towards the surface in a series of splays. As a result of this mechanism, the tectonic displacement that accumulates along a plane of a parent fault is dispersed towards the surface. Linear Shear Strength Decrease (LSSD), damage distribution and fault propagation modelling of the relations between the structure and distribution of the faults and the mechanical properties of the alluvial materials of Evrona emphasize the splay mechanism and other phenomena revealed by the GPR images.Correspondence to: U. Basson (uri@geo-sense.com) An analysis of the faults detected by GPR in Evrona helped in evaluating the relative level of tectonic activity of an active fault zone. According to this approach, the neotectonic history of the Evrona fault zone during the last 45 000 yr is recorded. The GPR record reveals a peak in tectonic activity within 18 000-27 000 ybp. This peak in tectonic activity is about 37% higher than the average tectonic activity of the whole period. The level of tectonic activity in the recent period recorded by GPR (0-9000 ybp) is about 70% of the average tectonic activity and about 50% of the peak activity. These values and the decreasing trend in the tectonic activity since the peak wave suggest that the most recent period is tectonically quiet.