Palaeoecology, ichno- and micropalaeontology, and facies architectures of the Cambrian succession in the southern Wadi Araba (Jordan Rift Valley): marginal-marine biotops and palaeogeographic reconstructions along the early Palaeozoic margin of W-Gondwana

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Olaf Elicki
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2009 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 141128871

The extraordinary successful first phase of the project has provided numerous very important (key-) results which extended significantly our knowledge on the Cambrian at the northern Arabo–Nubian Shield, and which moved the working areas into the international interest as a palaeogeographic key region. During the first phase of the project numerous new sedimentary sections and fossil localities have been provided from Egypt (Eastern Desert and Sinai Peninsula) and from Jordan (Dead Sea area) yielding a spectacular macro-, ichno-, and (for the first time) micro-fauna, leading to a biostratigraphic narrowing, to taxonomic and stratigraphic revisions, and to preliminary palaeogeographic results. Based on this success, the here suggested project renewal will be focused on the investigation of hitherto not or only scarcely investigated palaeoecologic, palaeontologic (mainly trace fossils and micro-fauna) as well as sediment- and biofacies aspects of successions of the southern Wadi Araba (southern Jordan Rift Valley). This will close the still existing, distinct stratigraphic-palaeogeographic gaps to the NE-African (Eastern Desert and Sinai Peninsula), to the S- to Mid-European (Spain, France, Italy, Germany), and to the Asia Minor regions (Turkey). Complemental to the first phase of the project, special focus will be put on the progression of the marine regression (as a transregional correlation level) as well as on the maximum stage of the transgression (maximum number on facies belts) between the Sinai Peninsula and the Dead Sea region, what means the southern Wadi Araba, which represents an important connecting region between the Cambrian depo-centres in NE-Africa and the Middle East. Furthermore, the consequences of and the response to earliest Palaeozoic Sea-level fluctuations by the internal structure of sedimentary and ecological systems as well as in the specificity and the changes of the interactions between biota and environment, especially in the direct marine-to-continental transitional areas, will be investigated. The expected results will enable the adjustment of the Cambrian of the working area (of both the first and the renewal phases of the project) into the whole NE-African and Middle East region, as well as its integration in modern global schemes by the reconstruction of consistent depositional and biofacies models and stratigraphic frames. The expected data will significantly contribute to our understanding of the very special sedimentary and biotic systems and processes of the Cambrian, which – regarding biosphere and exogenetic dynamics – represents one of the most exciting and unique stratigraphic phases in Earth’s evolution.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants