The recent huge gas discovery in thick Early Miocene siliciclastic layers of the deep Levant Basin, offshore Israel, highlighted a new world-class prolific gas province and subsequently sparked great interest in the Oligo-Miocene deep-water sediments of the Levant Basin. Based on a dense network of seismic data collected in the previously unexplored deep Levant Basin, we present two fundamental observations. One, that more than half of its sedimentary column accumulated within a mere ∼15% of the basin's life span (Fig. 2), that is a ∼6 km thick section within 37 million years (post Mid Eocene). Two, this young section first accumulated in the deep basin and only then did large amounts of sediments amass along the continental margin. These fundamental observations allude to two feasible source-to-sink scenarios. One, that the thick Late Tertiary section is composed of large amounts of terrigenous material which originated in Arabia and transported via the Israeli continental margin and two, that the terrigenous material originated in Africa and transported via the region that eventually evolved into the Nile River cone. Our data emphasizes the difficulties of the first scenario and suggest that these sediments were transported mostly from Africa, though limited turbidite layers may have been transported from the east. The proposed paleogeographic model incites new questions regarding ocean circulation at a time in which the neo-Tethys was closing and the marine connection to the Mesopotamian Basin either ceased or substantially diminished.

An international and multidisciplinary group of scientists have recently joined efforts to 3 organize the challenging endeavor of drilling through the thick Messinian evaporites found in 4 deep Mediterranean basins (IODP pre-Proposal P857B DREAM; Camerlenghi et al., 2014; Lofi 5 and Camerlenghi, 2014). The targeted deep basin evaporites reach up to 3 km in thickness (Hsü, 6 1973) and are thought to have resulted from restricted connectivity of the Mediterranean Basin to 7 the Atlantic Ocean that lead to the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC). It has been suggested that 8 deposition of the MSC salt giant has greatly affected the global oceans by sequestering 5% 9

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The tectonically driven Cenozoic closure of the Tethys Ocean invoked a significant reorganization of oceanic circulation and climate patterns on a global scale. this process culminated between the Mid Oligocene and Late Miocene, although its exact timing has remained so far elusive, as does the subsequent evolution of the proto-Mediterranean, primarily due to a lack of reliable, continuous deep-sea records. Here, we present for the first time the framework of the Oligo-Miocene evolution of the deep Levant Basin, based on the chrono-, chemo-and bio-stratigraphy of two deep boreholes from the eastern Mediterranean. the results reveal a major pulse in terrigeneous mass accumulation rates (MARs) during 24-21 Ma, reflecting the erosional products of the Red Sea rifting and subsequent uplift that drove the collision between the Arabian and Eurasian plates and the effective closure of the Indian Ocean-Mediterranean Seaway. Subsequently, the proto-Mediterranean experienced an increase in primary productivity that peaked during the Mid-Miocene climate optimum. A regionwide hiatus across the Serravallian (13.8-11.6 Ma) and a crash in carbonate MARs during the lower Tortonian reflect a dissolution episode that potentially marks the earliest onset of the global middle to late Miocene carbonate crash.

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The circum-Nile deformation belt (CNDB) demonstrates the interaction between a giant delta and a giant salt body. The semi-radial shape of the CNDB is commonly interpreted as the product of salt squeezing out from under the Nile Delta. We demonstrate, however, that this is not the dominant process, because the delta and its deep-sea fan do not reach the deep-basin salt. The distal part of the deep-sea fan overlies the edge of the salt giant, but squeezing this edge (<150 m thickness) should have had only little effect on the regional salt tectonics. Only on the easternmost side of the deep-sea fan, toward the Levant Basin, does the squeeze-out model work. Here, the delta front reaches the thick salt layer and differential loading promotes basinward salt flow, even upslope. On the western side of the delta, downslope gliding of the sediment-salt sequence toward the Herodotus Basin is driven by the elevation gradient toward the deepest part of the basin. Our analysis shows that salt squeezing by differential loading was previously overestimated in the Eastern Mediterranean and raises the need to carefully map the boundary of salt basins prior to any interpretation. This conclusion is especially relevant in young basins where deltas and shelves have not propagated far enough into the basin.

The Messinian salinity crisis (MSC) is perceived as an environmental crisis governed by climatic and tectonic controls, affecting global oceans' salinity and shaping the Mediterranean Sea's biochemical composition. Recently drilled offshore wells in the Levant Basin retrieved a sedimentary record of the deep-basin Mediterranean MSC salt deposits and the underlying pre-evaporite unit. In this study, we have concentrated on the pre-evaporite interval and its transition into the overlying evaporites. Analysis of this data set changes the way these deposits have been perceived since the 1970s, when they were first penetrated in their uppermost part during Deep Sea Drilling Project expeditions. Using sedimentology, seismic interpretation, biostratigraphy, and astronomical tuning, we show that Messinian salt deposition in the Eastern Mediterranean began during stage 1 of the MSC. In contrast to the present paradigm, salt was deposited synchronously with gypsum in the marginal and intermediate-depth basins significantly before the 50 k.y. interval coined as the "MSC acme event", ~400 k.y. after the crisis began. Thus salt precipitation took place in a non-desiccated deep basin, having a restricted but often open connection with the Atlantic Ocean, substantially altering our understanding of the mechanisms governing the deposition of salt giants. A coeval onset of basinal halite and marginal gypsum precipitation calls for a revaluation of global-scale climatic and oceanographic models of the MSC, taking into account a much older age for the beginning of halite deposition.1 GSA Data Repository item 2018060, summary of biostratigraphy data, seismic interpretation, spectral analysis of well logs, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope