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2. Neoththys: Levant and North African offshore |
Department of Geology and Mineralogy, the University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan
Detailed sedimentological investigations of Wadi Mujib (Central Jordan), east of the Dead Sea, show that the regional contact of Lower Cretaceous fluviatile deposits on Upper Cretaceous carbonates ushered in a shallow marine environment all over Jordan. Later, an emergent area, in Wadi Mujib only, passes upwards and laterally eastwards into a supratidal environment, followed again by shallow marine conditions. The emergence is marked by a major eroisional unconformity with wadi deposits, caliche and karstification. Wadi Mujib is believed to have been an island during Lower Cenomanian time and is thought to be an example of vertical tectonics in the area prior to Tertiary rifting of the Dead Sea to the west.
