Tectono-stratigraphy
Evolution of the Levant alongside Africa-Arabia breakup
Our research highlights the importance of a ~15 myr period during the early stage of Africa-Arabia breakup when the Red Sea began opening, the Tethys Ocean was closing, and a huge land mass now composing the Middle East region was uplifted and exposed. We show that at that time, prior to the localization of deformation along the DST, the Levant (passive) continental margin was tectonically reactivated and sediment influx into the basin increased dramatically.
High structures in the Levant basin
Recent giant gas discoveries within deeply buried structural highs in the middle of the Levant basin have attracted the attention of the industrial and academic communities striving to understand the origin of these structures, their relations with the tectonic history of the basin, and their evolution through time. What is the origin of the deeply buried structures in the basin? Are they related to the Early Mesozoic rifting or to the Late Mesozoic – Early Tertiary Africa-Eurasia convergent phase? How are the structures in the basin related to the closure of the Tethys Ocean, to the onshore Syrian Arc fold belt, and the Dead Sea transform?
Sediment transport and dispersal
The end of the Middle Eocene marked the onset of a number of processes that significantly changed the paleogeography of the Middle East. Northern Arabia and East Africa started rising, the sea retreated hundreds of kilometers northwestwards, and a huge amount of terrigenous material started entering the Levant Basin. Our study seeks to understand the sedimentary sources that had fed the Levant Basin in the Late Cenozoic, the transport and dispersal mechanisms, and particularly the cause for the significant transition from basin-wide sediment dispersal in the Oligo-Miocene (deep basin sand sheets) to nearshore accumulation since the Pliocene (Nile delta and Israeli shelf).
Read more
The Messinian salinity crisis (MSC) is an extreme event in Earth history during which a salt giant (>1 × 106 km3) accumulated on the Mediterranean seafloor within ~640 k.y. The Messinian salt giant was formed about 6 million years ago when the restriction of water exchanges between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea turned the Mediterranean into an enormous saline basin. After more than 40 years of research, the timing and the depositional environments of shallow (<200 m) and intermediate (200-1000 m) water-depth Messinian basins is known quite well from detailed studies of onshore outcrops. But what had happened in the deepest portions of the Mediterranean Sea during the MSC is still unclear, because the information about offshore successions is mainly based on geophysical data with no rock samples that can be dated. In this context the Levant Basin recently became a key region for studying the MSC, because up to date it is the only deep Mediterranean basin where the entire Messinian section was penetrated by wells, which can be tied to high resolution 3D seismic surveys.
Read more
Salt tectonics and seafloor dynamics
The Mediterranean Sea as a whole and its southeastern corner (Levant Basin) in particular, provide an opportunity to document the early stage of salt tectonics, which cannot be observed in highly deformed salt giants. The relatively shallow burial depth in the Levant Basin is enough to trigger salt deformation; yet, this deformation is relatively mild and still hasn’t erased the internal stratification in the salt sequence.
Read more
Zevulun valley: geological structure and formation
Under constructions
Northern Negev: geological structure and Late Paleozoic / Early Mesozoic rifting
Under constructions