Arkell.1956.Jurassic..

292 THE MIDDLE EAST
PALESTINE AND TRANSJORDAN
The zone of simple autochthonous folds (Picard, 1939 map) (fig. 40)
encircling the plateau edge of the Arabo-Nubian massif, of which Gebel
Maghara is one of the most important anticlines, continues north-eastwards
through Palestine and Syria and then bends round eastwards into Iraq.
The surface-forming rocks of Palestine are mainly Cretaceous and Eocene,
among which the Jurassic and Triassic systems are brought up as inliers
in the major anticlines, or where deep valleys have been eroded through
the Cretaceous cover to reach the depression of the Dead Sea.
That there were also post-Jurassic, probably Lower Cretaceous,
movements, is proved by the next anticline to Gebel Maghara, the dome of
Araif-al-Naga, just on the Sinai side of the Sinai-Palestine frontier,
midway between the Mediterranean and the head of the Gulf of Akaba.
Here the Jurassic system is missing entirely, cut out by Lower Cretaceous
erosion. The core of the dome consists of marine Middle Trias, overlain
directly by Nubian Sandstone. The Trias is in Muschelkalk facies with
Ceratites, Beneckeia cf. buchi (Dunker) and conodonts. The lowest beds
exposed are violet and white sandstones of presumed Lower Triassic
or Permian age (Awad, 1945; Eicher, 1946).
Only 18 miles to the NW., slightly en echelon, the anticline of Wadi
Raman shows the Trias overlain by an outcrop of marine Jurassics 17 miles
long. A thickness of 458 metres is exposed. The succession consists largely
of sandstones, alternating with marls, and has yielded only a few pelecypods,
gastropods and brachiopods, including Terebratula subsella and
Somalirhynchia {Rhynchonella moravica) in a 1-3 m. limestone band 33 m.
from the top. The bulk of the series is regarded as Upper Jurassic (Shaw,
1947, p. 20). A system of dykes and sills cuts all the Jurassic rocks but
not the Nubian Sandstone (Bentor, 1952). They are probably contemporaneous
with the Kimeridgian-Tithonian volcanic episode in the
Lebanon. 1
A further 16 miles to the north, en echelon, begins a similar anticline at
W T
adi Hathira (Kurnub), in which are exposed 227 m. of Jurassics, base
not seen. The facies is different, limestones being much more in evidence
and sandstones wanting. The fauna is more numerous but similar to
that in Wadi Raman, and seems to be all Upper Jurassic, probably
Callovian to Lower Kimeridgian. No ammonites have been found.
Lower Cretaceous sandstones follow unconformably, with angular blocks
of Jurassic limestone in the base, and Aptian fossils higher up (Blake,
1935, pp. 71-2; Shaw, 1947, pp. 18-20; Blake & Goldschmidt, 1947, pp.
316-7).
The only other exposures of Jurassic rocks known south of the Syrian
border are found just beyond the frontier of Palestine, in (Trans)Jordan,
on the east side of the Jordan valley about 48 km. N. of the north end of
1
Note in proof. I was informed in December 1954 by Mr A. Parnes, Jerusalem,
that a Bajocian fauna with Stephanoceras has been discovered in the Wadi Raman.
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