Stratigraphic evolution of the North Levant Platform (Syria) during Aptian to Early Turonian

• Main Author: Ghanem, Hussam
• Other Authors: Kuss, Hans-Joachim, Henrich, Rüdiger, Lehmann, Jens
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universität Bremen 2012
• Subjects: Syria; Levant; Stratigraphy; Palmyrides; Coastal Range; Aptian; Albian Cenomanian; 550; 550 Earth sciences and geology; ddc:550; Planktonic foraminifera
• Online Access: https://media.suub.uni-bremen.de/handle/elib/399; https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:46-00102846-17

The Levant margin includes the easternmost part of the Eastern Mediterranean in a region where the oceanic (Tethyan) plates and the Arabian, African and Eurasian crustal plates interact. The tectonic events in relation with these plate deformations resulted in the division of the Levant into several provinces; the Southern, the Middle and the Northern. The studied area forms the Northern part of the Levant Platform. The combination of relative sea changes, tectonics, volcanism and local, regional and global environmental perturbations in the North Levant left imprints on the Aptian - Early Turonian carbonate platform configuration and depositional settings. The latter are reconstructed within a nimproved stratigraphic framework, based on field observations, high resolution biostratigraphy, geochemical analysis, detailed microfacies distribution and sequence stratigraphy. The Aptian Early Turonian succession of the North Levant in the South Palmyrides and Coastal Range of Syria represents two different depositional environments of the intra platform rifting basin (Palmyrides) and passive marginal basin (Coastal Range). Deposition was controlled by terrigenous input and/or nutrition resources, syn-depositional volcanic activity, climatic and sea level change which gives the Aptian and the Albian Early Turonian its characteristic features. A high resolution stratigraphic calibration of the Aptian - Early Turonian strata of the Coastal Range and South Palmyrides are based on the integrated identification of benthonic and planktonic foraminifera, in comparison with carbon isotope signals and (subsurface) logs. The abundant larger benthonic foraminifera in all outcrops of both areas allow to subdivide the Aptian - Early Turonian succession into 7 biozones in the Coastal Range and five in the South Palmyrides. Locally abundant planktonic foraminifera allow the subdivision of the latest Aptian - Cenomanian succession into seven biozones in the South Palmyrides, comparing to seven biozones range from the latest Albian to ...