Quaternary stratigraphy and paleogeography of the Galilee coastal plain, Israel

The Quaternary deposits in the Galilee coastal plain comprise alternating c alcareous sandstone, red loam, dark clay, and uncemented sand. The calcareo us sandstone in the lower part of the sequence represents a Pliocene to ear ly Pleistocene marine transgression, and is covered unconformably by the la te Quaternary sequence. The base of this sequence has an estimated age of s imilar to 500,000 yr. It is covered unconformably by marine calcareous sand stone in the west, which represents the global high sea-level stand of isot ope stage 7.1, and is known as one of the "Tyrrhenian" events in the Medite rranean area. The overlying members represent the low sea-level stand of st age 6, the first a red paleosol indicating a relatively wet phase and the s econd an eolianite unit representing a drier phase. The eolianite forms lon gitudinal, subparallel ridges that formed contemporaneously. The overlying marine sandstone, which contains one of the diagnostic fossils of the "Tyrr henian" events, the gastropod Strombus bubonius LMK, accumulated during the global high stand of stage 5.5. The last glacial period left no sedimentar y record. The Holocene is represented by a marine clay unit that is covered by sand. The present study establishes a complete and detailed chronostrat igraphic sequence for an eastern Mediterranean beach, which contains the ga stropod S. bubonius LMK. S. bubonius on the Galilee coast is attributed to stage 5.5 and, therefore, establishes an east-west Mediterranean correlatio n, which can be used for linking Mediterranean events to paleo-sea levels a nd global climate changes. (C) 1999 University of Washington.