Late Quaternary Geological History of the Dead Sea Area, Israel

Abstract

A 34.5 m borehole, which was drilled near the Dead Sea coast (altitude -394 m) in the southern part of the fan delta of Wadi Zeelim, reveals the geological history of that area from the latest Pleistocene to present. The depositional time frame is based on six 14C dates and two U-Th dates. An erosional (or nondepositional) period is implied by the hiatus between 21,100 yr B.P. (U-Th age, depth 33 m) and 11,315 yr B.P. (14C age, depth 32 m). A subsequent arid phase is recorded by a 6.5-m-thick layer of halite; based on 14C dates this phase relates to the abrupt Younger Dryas cold period reported in temperate to polar regions. The fragility of the environment in this region is indicated by the fact that the region experienced such a severe, short aridification phase (less than 1000 yr), evidence of which is found widely in the desert fringes of the Middle East and North Africa. The aragonite found in most of the Holocene section indicates that the well site was covered by the lake for most of the Holocene. Exceptions are the intervals at 0-3 and 10-14 m depths which represent low stands of the lake.

Landscape and prehistoric chronology of West‐Central Jordan

“…Initial lowering of the Lisan occurred between 21,000 and 18,000 B.P. (Kaufman et al, 1992;Yechieli et al, 1993). Only Macumber and Head (1991) argue for no significant retreat of lake levels at this time, based on persistence of silts in the Wadi a1 Hammeh and the backing up of the wadi.…”

“…The early Lisan is dated to between 70,000 and 63,000 B.P. (Begin et al, ,1985Kaufman et al, 1992;Yechieli et al, 1993). While no dates have yet been obtained from the Hasa, the oldest Middle Paleolithic assemblages (at WHS 621) are of this age and the marls extend 10-15 m below depths dated to 26,000 B.P.…”

“…These studies emerged from long-term Nile Valley research (Wendorf, 1968;Wendorf and Marks, 1975) and have progressed eastward across the Sinai Peninsula and Negev Deserts (Marks, 1976(Marks, , 1977(Marks, , 1983Bar-Yosef and Phillips, 1977;Phillips, 1987;Gladfelter, 19901, effectively terminating at the Jordan-Araba Valley, the Levantine extension of the Syro-African Rift (Begin et al, , 1985Schuldenrein and Goldberg, 1981;Kaufman et al, 1992;Yechieli et al, 1993) (Figure 1). Most models are based on relationships between prehistoric sites, landforms, Quaternary stratigraphies, and drainage basin histories in arid and semiarid zones (Goldberg, 1986).…”

“…1 Two of the most productive regions for human ecological studies are the Jordan Rift valley and its adjacent physiographic province, the Negev Desert (Figure 1). On the margins of the western Rift, extensive archaeological and geological research has demonstrated especially strong correspondences between the Upper Pleistocene Lisan Lake (Begin et al, , 1985Yechieli et al, 1993) and prehistoric settlement between 70,000 and 11,000 B.P. (Bar Yosef, 1987;Schuldenrein and Goldberg, 1981).…”

Vegetation history and climate fluctuations on a transect along the Dead Sea west shore and their impact on past societies over the last 3500 years

“…Since the Neogene the depressions along the DST were filled by lakes (Stein, 2001) and in the Holocene the Dead Sea itself developed. The sediments (fluvial, fan deltas, shores, and lacustrine) comprise the Ze'elim Formation, which is exposed in erosion gullies at the shores and accessible in drillholes (Bookman (Ken-Tor) et al, 2004;Yechieli et al, 1993). The channel incision is a response to base level lowering due to lake level drops (Ben Moshe et al, 2008).…”