Calcareous sandstone a Route 2 near Zicron jacov

Kurkar ( ar, كركار / he, כורכר) is the term used in Palestinian Arabic and

modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

for the rock type of which

lithified Lithification (from the Ancient Greek word ''lithos'' meaning 'rock' and the Latin-derived suffix ''-ific'') is the process in which sediments compact under pressure, expel connate fluids, and gradually become solid rock. Essentially, lithificatio ...

sea sand dunes consist. The equivalent term used in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

is ramleh.[Aharon Horowitz. ''The Quaternary of Israel.'' Page 109. Academic Press, New York, 1979. . https://books.google.com/books?id=uT-0BQAAQBAJ&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=arabic+kurkar&source=bl&ots=jsSFmx-BO4&sig=a7zcZmxiJAoUMrqxs2u7f9u6fPQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjCx7ynisrKAhWFkg8KHQwHCssQ6AEIODAG#v=onepage&q=arabic%20kurkar&f=false]

History

Kurkar is the regional name for an aeolian quartz sandstone with carbonate cement, in other words an eolianite or a calcarenite (calcareous

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicat ...

grainstone Under the Dunham classification (Dunham, 1962) system of limestones, a grainstone is defined as a grain-supported carbonate rock that contains less than 1% mud-grade material. This definition has recently been clarified as ''a carbonate-dominated ...

), found on the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

ine coast of the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

, Palestine,

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, Francisc Dov Por. ''The Legacy of Tethys: An Aquatic Biogeography of the Levant.'' Pages 46-48, 54. Springer, New York, 1989, Monographiae Biologicae (Book 63), . "... around Tel Aviv ridges of aeolanitic sandstone ("kurkar") become prevalent. ..Along the Lebanese and most of the Syrian coast, calcareous rocks alternate with kurkar ridges. ..The vermetid platforms are especially well developed on the kurkar sandstones of the Israeli and southern Lebanese shores....

/ref> the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

and northern

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a ...

. The kurkar ridges are prevalent on Israel's coast from the area of Tel Aviv northwards. South of

Mount Carmel Mount Carmel ( he, הַר הַכַּרְמֶל, Har haKarmel; ar, جبل الكرمل, Jabal al-Karmil), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias ( ar, link=no, جبل مار إلياس, Jabal Mār Ilyās, lit=Mount Saint Elias/ Elijah), is a ...

they form parallel alignments, the result of transgressive coastlines.Maurice Schwartz (editor). ''Encyclopedia of Coastal Science.'' Page 74. Springer (Kluwer), Dordrecht, 2005, Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series,

/ref> Kurkar is the product of windblown quartzitic sands which created

dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

, which were cemented by carbonates transforming them to sandstone (lithification process), forming successive ridges along the shore. Kurkar occurs on the shore as well as under the current sea level, on the continental shelf. There are three underwater sandstone ridges off the coast of Israel and two on land. The younger kurkar formations also build small islands or islets along the coast of Israel, Lebanon (at

Sidon Sidon ( ; he, צִידוֹן, ''Ṣīḏōn'') known locally as Sayda or Saida ( ar, صيدا ''Ṣaydā''), is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate, of which it is the capital, on the Mediterranean coast. ...

and near Tripoli), and Syria (

Arwad Arwad, the classical Aradus ( ar, أرواد), is a town in Syria on an eponymous island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is the administrative center of the Arwad Subdistrict (''nahiyah''), of which it is the only locality. In the

, coastal plain kurkar deposits of medium to coarse-grained calcareous sandstone are characterized by

crossbedding In geology, cross-bedding, also known as cross-stratification, is layering within a stratum and at an angle to the main bedding plane. The sedimentary structures which result are roughly horizontal units composed of inclined layers. The origina ...

. Israel's coastal sand dunes, the habitat of many rare species of plants and animals, are made of kurkar interspersed with hamra, red sandy loam. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Palestine (then under the Ottoman Empire) had 285 square kilometers of kurkar and hamra formations. Due to construction, farming and the use of off-road vehicles, this has diminished to 109 square kilometers. Kurkar ridges in Israel provide nesting sites for an endangered species of bird, the European

bee-eater The bee-eaters are a group of non-passerine birds in the family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by ...

; and nine species of wild plants native only to Israel, such as the coastal iris. In May 2009, an offshore pilot study was conducted in the northern

Galilee Galilee (; he, הַגָּלִיל, hagGālīl; ar, الجليل, al-jalīl) is a region located in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. Galilee traditionally refers to the mountainous part, divided into Upper Galilee (, ; , ) and Lower Gali ...

by a team of scientists collecting geological, geophysical, geochemical and biological data in the vicinity of the Bustan Hagalil kurkar ridge. The ridge was mapped during the National Bathymetric Survey of Israel by multibeam

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on o ...

References

External links

*{{cite journal , last1=Frechen , first1=Manfred , last2=Neber , first2=Alexander , last3=Tsatskin , first3=Alexander , last4=Boenigk , first4=Wolfgang , last5=Ronen , first5=Avraham , title=Chronology of Pleistocene sedimentary cycles in the Carmel Coastal Plain of Israel , journal=Quaternary International , date=January 2004 , volume=121 , issue=1 , pages=41–52 , doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2004.01.022 , bibcode=2004QuInt.121...41F Geology of Israel Sedimentary rocks

History

See also

References

External links