Resumen de The Quaternary Stratigraphy and Paleogeography of Israel
The Quaternary stratigraphy and paleogeography of Israël is discussed in some detail, and suggestions for the correlation of the various rock and geomorphic units are presented. The Quaternary is divided into the Preglacial Pleistocene, during which the country inherited the previous flat-land morphology, dominated by fluvial activity and changing sea levels of the Calabrian and Sicilian. The only base levels in this period are the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The transition to the Glacial Pleistocene was followed by the downfaulting of the Jordan - Arava Rift Valley and the upwarping of the mountainous backbone, both in an approximate northsouth lineament. The new, endoreic Rift Valley base level was added to the previous two, and the Bay of Elat was considerably deepened. The climate plays an important role in the natural processes, by alternating pluvial and interpluvial domains, correlated with the European glacials and inter glacials, respectively. The pluvials are characterized by regressive seas, red soils, rich vegetation, mild erosion and lakes in the Rift Valley. The interpluvials are represented by ingressive seas and sand dunes in the coastal plain, rather poor vegetation, considerable erosion of the mountainous soils by floods and the shrinking of lakes in the Rift Valley to peat bogs and hypersaline ponds. Correlations are presented, based on there cognition of the different influences of the changing climates on the different domains of erosion and deposition.
