Sahel Alma or Sahel Aalma is a

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

paleontological Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

site and Konservat-Lagerstätte in Keserwan-Jbeil,

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

. Located near the town of the same name, it documents well-preserved deepwater marine fossils dating to the late

Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya ( million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 m ...

stage of the Cretaceous. It is often associated with the slightly older, similarly famous

Sannine Formation The Sannine Formation, also called the Sannine Limestone, is a Cretaceous geologic formation in Lebanon. It is a Konservat-Lagerstätte that contains a high diversity of well-preserved fish, reptiles, and invertebrates from the Tethys Ocean wit ...

sites (Haqel, Hadjula, and Nammoura), with these four sites being together referred to as the "Fish Beds" of Lebanon. It is one of the few fossiliferous units of the Chekka Formation, a wider geological formation in Lebanon deposited from the

to the early

Paleogene The Paleogene Period ( ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Ma. It is the fir ...

Description

Much like the fossil sites of the older Sannine Formation, Sahel Alma contains exquisitely preserved marine fossils from the

Tethys Ocean The Tethys Ocean ( ; ), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean during much of the Mesozoic Era and early-mid Cenozoic Era. It was the predecessor to the modern Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Eurasia ...

, deposited off the northern coast of the Afro-Arabian continent. However, unlike the Sannine Formation sites, which were deposited in relatively shallow waters near the shore on the inner

continental shelf A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

, Sahel Alma was deposited in a deepwater habitat off the

continental slope A continental margin is the outer edge of continental crust abutting oceanic crust under coastal waters. It is one of the three major zones of the ocean floor, the other two being deep-ocean basins and mid-ocean ridges. The continental margi ...

, at depths estimated to be greater than , likely at the transition between the

sublittoral The littoral zone, also called litoral or nearshore, is the part of a sea, lake, or river that is close to the shore. In coastal ecology, the littoral zone includes the intertidal zone extending from the high water mark (which is rarely in ...

and bathyal zones in dysphotic or

aphotic The aphotic zone (aphotic from Greek prefix + "without light") is the portion of a lake or ocean where there is little or no sunlight. It is formally defined as the depths beyond which less than 1 percent of sunlight penetrates. Above the aphot ...

conditions. This has caused it to preserve a distinct fauna from the Sannine Formation, with a significant number of deepwater

arthropods Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

and

chondrichthyans Chondrichthyes (; ) is a class of jawed fish that contains the cartilaginous fish or chondrichthyans, which all have skeletons primarily composed of cartilage. They can be contrasted with the Osteichthyes or ''bony fish'', which have skeletons ...

. As with the sites of the Sannine Formation, the fossils of Sahel Alma are very well-preserved, and include the soft body parts of cartilaginous fish and cephalopods. ''

Palaeoctopus ''Palaeoctopus'' is an extinct genus of octopuses that lived during the Late Cretaceous. It contains one valid species, ''P. newboldi'', which has been found in Lebanon. Taxonomy ''Calais newboldi'' was named by Henry B. Woodward in 1896 for ...

'', the first fossil octopus discovered with preserved soft tissues, was discovered from Sahel Alma.

History

Sahel Alma is one of the oldest-known fossil sites in Lebanon, second only to the Haqel site of the Sannine Formation. It has been known of since the

Seventh Crusade The Seventh Crusade (1248–1254) was the first of the two Crusades led by Louis IX of France. Also known as the Crusade of Louis IX to the Holy Land, it aimed to reclaim the Holy Land by attacking Egypt, the main seat of Muslim power in the Nea ...

in the 13th century, when bricks quarried out of it were used to build the eponymous

Maronite Maronites (; ) are a Syriac Christianity, Syriac Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant (particularly Lebanon) whose members belong to the Maronite Church. The largest concentration has traditionally re ...

monastery at Sahel Alma. A fossil fish presented to King Louis IX around this time may have been from the site. The site was also likely documented by C. F. Volney during the early 1780s. British adventurer

Lady Hester Stanhope Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope (12 March 1776 – 23 June 1839) was a British adventurer, writer, antiquarian, and one of the most famous travellers of her age. Her excavation of Ascalon in 1815 is considered the first to use modern Archaeology ...

settled near Sahel Alma in the early 19th century, and helped to collect and circulate fossils from the site and Haqel.

Paul-Émile Botta Paul-Émile Botta (6 December 1802 – 29 March 1870) was an Italian-born French scientist who served as Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Iraq) from 1842, and who discovered the ruins of the ancient Assyrian capital of Dur-Shar ...

was also another prolific early researcher of the site. The site is no longer accessible for scientific research as buildings were constructed over it, due to the purchase of the site by a private company, which restored the Sahel Alma monastery as a hotel.

Paleobiota

Vertebrates

Cartilaginous fish

Ray-finned fishes

Invertebrates

Arthropods

Molluscs

References

{{Reflist Cretaceous paleontological sites of Asia Geologic formations of Lebanon Santonian Stage Lagerstätten Paleontology in Lebanon Deep marine deposits