PALEORIENT Vol. 3 1975-1976-1977

THE QUATERNARY STRATIGRAPHY AND PALEOGEOGRAPHY OF ISRAEL

A. HOROWITZ

Introduction

The area of Israel was submerged by an epiconti- nental sea connected with the Tethys in Cenomanian through Oligocène times almost continuously (1). Folding movements shaped the basins of deposition from late Turonian onwards (2), being active also in Neogene- Quaternary times (3). Neogene and Quaternary faulting and uplifting (4) shaped the country and later divided it into its present configuration of basins and highlands.

During the Miocene the area of Israel was drained into three basins: the southern, central and northwestern regions to the Mediterranean, the southeastern to the Red Sea through the Bay of Elat (Aqaba) and the northeastern to the Persian Gulf, through the graben of Wadi Sirhan. At the turn of the Miocene, or the earliest Pliocene, the Jordan and Yizre'el valleys have been downfaulted and inundated by the sea, and the connection with the Persian Gulf ceased. Sediments filled the basins and erosion flattened the country, so that at the beginning of the Quaternary, following the Late Pliocene regression, a vast peneplain was exposed, over which the Preglacial Pleistocene rivers

flowed to the Mediterranean. The Bay of Elat, as previously, served as an erosion base level for the south- easternmost corner of Israel.

Miocene and Pliocene fluviatile and lacustrine sediments in the Jordan Valley and the eastern coastal plain, and marine sediments further west, are the bedrock on which the Quaternary sediments and basalts were laid down.

The term "Quaternary" is used in the present context in the wide sense, including the Calabrian and "Villa- franchian" stages, as suggested already in 1911 by Haug and confirmed later, in 1961, by the VI INQUA Congress at Warsaw. It opposes the views of some other investigators (5) but seems to be more and more acceptable at present (6).

The radiometric age for the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition is accepted here at approximately 2.8 mnlion years. This age is based on potassium-argon datings of basalts from Israël (7) and on paleomagnetic dating of deep sea cores (8). Some other potassium-argon datings are given for Quaternary basalts from Israel by Horowitz et al. (9) and Siedner and Horowitz (10) : the boundary between the Preglacial and

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