Evolution of the Levant Platform - Cretaceous-Paleogene Surfaces and Sequences of the Golan, West Jordan, Sinai and the Galalas

By

 Jochen Kuss¹, Jan Bauer¹, Martina Bachmann¹, Christian Scheibner¹, Frauke Schulze¹

(1) Bremen University, Bremen, Germany

 The Levant Platform (LP) extended from Syria in the northeast to Egypt in the southwest and was subdivided into four platform-units PU1 to PU4, each separated by key surfaces. Stratigraphic and sedimentologic analyses allow to interpret facies variation, depositional geometry, and architecture within the depositional sequences and to describe platform progradation and retrogradation. The studied surface sections represent different stratigraphic intervals of the LP and are from northeast to southwest:

-         the Golan record - Berriasian to Albian (PU1-PU2),

-         central west Jordan record - uppermost Albian to Turonian (upper PU2-PU3),

-         the Sinai record - Aptian to Coniacian (PU1 - PU3)

-         the Galala Heights / Eastern Desert record - Campanian to Paleogene (PU4).

Outcrop methodology and detailed lithologic, sedimentologic, paleontologic, and paleogeographic data allow to identify and to organize the genetic depositional elements within the LP hiearchically. We define six sequence sets (SST1 to 6), each composed of up to twelve depositional sequences. The SSTs are portrayed by prominent changes of tectonic episodes (uplift and subsidence) or changes in the paleoceanographic regime, both inducing major changes of the platform environments. Depositional processes within the Late Aptian - Paleogene sequence sets reflect 38 relative sea-level oscillations marked by third-order SBs; additionally two second-order SBs are indicated within the Late Barremian - Early Aptian interval. Comparisons with neighbouring platforms and charts indicate several mismatches of the LP- sequences that may be due to local uplift, clastic input or subsidence variations.