Elsevier

Quaternary Science Reviews

Volume 179, 1 January 2018, Pages 123-136
Quaternary Science Reviews

Synoptic conditions of fine-particle transport to the last interglacial Red Sea-Dead Sea from Nd-Sr compositions of sediment cores

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.09.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Sahara deserts were the dominant source for dusts in the Red Sea – Dead Sea watersheds.

  • A “Regional Sr” source with low 87Sr/86Sr ratios was formed by dissolution of detrital calcites.

  • The desert belt expanded over the subtropical areas during Heinrich Event 11 (∼135–132 ka).

  • Regional floods dominated runoff in the Red Sea-Dead Sea watersheds during the Sapropel S5 period (∼129–124 ka).

Abstract

The sediments deposited at the depocenter of the Dead Sea comprise high-resolution archive of hydrological changes in the lake's watershed and record the desert dust transport to the region. This paper reconstructs the dust transport to the region during the termination of glacial Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS 6; ∼135–129 ka) and the last interglacial peak period (MIS5e, ∼129–116 ka). We use chemical and Nd and Sr isotope compositions of fine detritus material recovered from sediment core drilled at the deepest floor of the Dead Sea. The data is integrated with data achieved from cores drilled at the floor of the Red Sea, thus, forming a Red Sea-Dead Sea transect extending from the desert belt to the Mediterranean climate zone. The Dead Sea accumulated flood sediments derived from three regional surface cover types: settled desert dust, mountain loess-soils and loess-soils filling valleys in the Dead Sea watershed termed here “Valley Loess”. The Valley Loess shows a distinct 87Sr/86Sr ratio of 0.7081 ± 1, inherited from dissolved detrital calcites that originate from dried waterbodies in the Sahara and are transported with the dust to the entire transect.

Our hydro-climate and synoptic conditions reconstruction illustrates the following history: During glacial period MIS6, Mediterranean cyclones governed the transport of Saharan dust and rains to the Dead Sea watershed, driving the development of both mountain soils and Valley Loess. Then, at Heinrich event 11, dry western winds blew Saharan dust over the entire Red Sea - Dead Sea transect marking latitudinal expansion of the desert belt. Later, when global sea-level rose, the Dead Sea watershed went through extreme aridity, the lake retreated, depositing salt and accumulating fine detritus of the Valley Loess. During peak interglacial MIS 5e, enhanced flooding activity flushed the mountain soils and fine detritus from all around the Dead Sea and Red Sea, marking a significant “contraction” of the desert belt. At the end of MIS 5e the effect of the regional precipitation diminished and the Dead Sea and Red Sea areas re-entered sever arid conditions with extensive salt deposition at the Dead Sea.

Introduction

The last interglacial peak, Marine Isotope Stage 5e (MIS 5e), was associated with stronger northern hemisphere insolation, higher global sea levels (e.g. Marino et al., 2015, Stirling et al., 1998) and higher average global temperatures (e.g. Lauritzen, 1995, Leduc et al., 2010) compared to the Holocene, and may be an analogue for a future warmer world (Govin et al., 2015). In this perspective the present-day areas of the Sahara-Arabia deserts are of special interest since their margins are densely inhabited and global climate models predict enhanced aridity in these regions with future warming. The Dead Sea, situated at the northern fringe of the desert belt, is a sensitive monitor for past hydroclimate changes in the Levant region as global climate shifted from glacial to interglacial conditions (e.g. Kiro et al., 2016, Stein, 2001, Stein et al., 2010, Torfstein et al., 2015).

During glacial times large amounts of desert dust were blown from the dry Sahara Desert and settled at the Negev Desert, Judea and Galilee Mountains (Frumkin and Stein, 2004, Revel et al., 2010). Part of the desert dust that settled on the Judea Mountains was rapidly washed to the Dead Sea or dissolved, providing calcium and bicarbonate ions to the lake that in turn formed there the primary aragonite material that comprises part of the lacustrine formations (Belmaker et al., 2014, Haliva-Cohen et al., 2012, Stein et al., 1997). The remaining fine detritus that accumulated as loess material or mountain soils mainly during glacial intervals (Crouvi et al., 2009, Faershtein et al., 2016) was remobilized and washed by floods to the lake during interglacial intervals. While this description, drafted by Haliva-Cohen et al. (2012), explains how fine detritus was mobilized in the Dead Sea watershed on glacial-interglacial timescales, it does not reconstruct in detail the patterns of dust mobilization during the terminations periods (glacial–interglacial transitions) or during the last interglacial.

Here, we establish the patterns of dust mobilization along a geographical and climate transect extending from the Dead Sea watershed in the north at the sub-tropical Mediterranean climate zone to the Sahara-Sahel boundary in the south. We aim to reconstruct the hydroclimate regime and synoptic conditions that controlled the mobilization of fine detritus particles to the eastern margins of the Sahara Desert, during the transition interval that extends from penultimate glacial MIS 6 through the termination period T2 (135–129 ka) to the last interglacial peak MIS 5e (129–116 ka). While the Dead Sea received its fine particles mainly by floods that washed the surface cover of its watershed, fine detritus recovered from cores drilled in the Red Sea floor (Fig. 1) comprise desert dust that was blown to the sea and settled on its floor (Palchan et al., 2013, Sirocko and Lange, 1991, Stein et al., 2007).

We present mineralogical and chemical data and Nd-Sr isotope ratios of fine detritus samples recovered from the deepest floor of the Dead Sea by drilling. The Dead Sea data are compared and integrated with previous data on fine detritus recovered from the Red Sea cores (KL23 and KL11) (Palchan et al., 2013, Stein et al., 2007).

Section snippets

The geological setting of the Red Sea and Dead Sea basins

The Red Sea region is subjected to rifting and continental drifting (e.g. Mohriak and Leroy, 2013). The sediments exposed in its watershed are a series of shallow marine – lacustrine and terrestrial sediments were deposited comprising mainly sands, some evaporites and carbonate rocks and minor shales (Bunter and Magid, 1989, Hadad and Abdullah, 2015). In addition, the major exposed lithologies surrounding the Red Sea are the late Proterozoic granitoids and related rocks of the Arabian Nubian

Synoptic conditions along the Red Sea-Dead Sea transect

Contemporary synoptic conditions (i.e., the prevailing winds over a ∼1000 km area) along the Red Sea-Dead Sea transect reflects the interplay between two major synoptic systems: the Mediterranean cyclones and the low latitude monsoonal circulation (Clemens et al., 1991, Dayan, 1986, Palchan et al., 2013). Dust settling in the Dead Sea watershed is usually associated with Mediterranean cyclones and winter-rains (Dayan et al., 2008). The settled dust is partly washed to the Dead Sea by seasonal

General

We base our synoptic and hydroclimate reconstruction on the identification of the sources of the fine detritus and the means of its mobilization to the final trap – the Dead Sea floor. This identification in turn is based on chemical and Nd and Sr isotopic compositions of the carbonate-free fine detritus sampled from the DSDDP core, which sample the depocenter of the lake (Fig. 1), thus accumulating material from the entire watershed. Our assessment considers the Nd-Sr isotope ratios and

Mineralogy of the fine detritus in the DSDDP core

Fine detritus recovered from the DSDDP core comprises mainly quartz and calcite as major constituents and clay and gypsum as minor (Appendix Table B.1). Samples of the Valley Loess surface cover show notable peaks of gypsum along with other common clay found in the region (Appendix Table B.1). This mineral composition of the DSDDP core samples resembles the silty-detritus material in the exposed marginal terraces of the lake that comprise remobilized loess deposits or settled desert dust washed

Sources of the fine detritus to the Red Sea- Dead Sea watershed

Overall, the Nd-Sr isotope ratios of the fine detritus in the Red Sea and Dead Sea cores lie between the compositions of three potential dust sources (Fig. 1, Fig. 7): (i) Nile sediments composed of fine particles that were originally eroded from Cenozoic basalt and granitoid terrains of the Ethiopian Highlands and the Sahara Shields and accumulated along the Nile Valley and in the Nile Delta; (ii) erosional products of the uplifted granitoid crustal terrains that comprise the Sahara Shields;

Summary and conclusions

The chemical and Nd-Sr isotopic compositions of fine detritus material in the DSDDP (the Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project) core drilled at the heart of the Dead Sea by International Continental Drilling Project are combined with data from cores drilled at the northern and central floors of the Red Sea and are used to reconstruct the synoptic conditions that governed the patterns of desert dust transport to the Dead Sea-Red Sea regions. We studied the time interval of ∼180 to ∼116 ka that

Acknowledgments

We thank Tom Goren of the Hebrew University for his advice on current atmospheric circulation and Ido Sirota for helping with the sample preparations. We also thank Dr. Amir Sandler and Dr. Onn Crouvi from the Geological Survey of Israel for XRD and grain size analyses. C. Hemleben and H. Schulz from the University of Tuebingen, Germany allowed generously the sampling of KL cores material used in this study. The manuscript benefited the comments of three anonymous reviewers. We acknowledge the

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