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Short Paper: Reevaluating the tectonic uplift of western Mount Carmel, Israel, since the middle Pleistocene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Dov Zviely ,
Ehud Galili ,
Avraham Ronen ,
Amos Salamon  and
Zvi Ben-Avraham
Dov Zviely*
Affiliation:
The Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Ehud Galili
Affiliation:
Israel Antiquities Authority, POB 180 Atlit 30350, Israel
Avraham Ronen
Affiliation:
Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Amos Salamon
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel, Jerusalem 95501, Israel
Zvi Ben-Avraham
Affiliation:
Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel
*
⁎Corresponding author. zviely@netvision.net.il, galilish@netvision.net.il, aronen@research.haifa.ac.il, salamon@gsi.gov.il
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Abstract

Reevaluation of geological and archaeological evidence from western Mount Carmel constrains its maximal tectonic uplift since the Middle Pleistocene. Tabun Cave, presently 45 m above sea level (asl), revealed human occupation from about 600 ka to 90 ka before present. The 25 m thick archaeological strata at Tabun are composed of laminated fine sand, silt and clays. Moreover, no marine deposits were found in Tabun or nearby caves. Since sea level in the last 600 ka reached a maximal of 5 to 10 m asl, Tabun Cave could not have been uplifted since then by more than 35 to 40 m, that is a maximal average rate of 58 to 67 mm/ka.

Keywords

Eastern MediterraneanCarmel coastal plainCarmel faultTabun CaveSea-level changesMIS 5e
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 71 , Issue 2 , March 2009 , pp. 239 - 245
Copyright
University of Washington

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