Synopsis

The two large lakes named Samra and Lisan existed in the Dead Sea graben from 350,000 to 120,000B.p. and 60,000 to 12,000B.p. Their sediments tentatively are correlated with the European Riss and Würm glacial epochs. Thick marls are the chief sediments in the deep water north basin. Rocksalt deposition dominated within the troughs of both north and south basins throughout the intervening Riss-Würm Interglacial stage. Lithology of Lisan Formation (Würm) in that basin indicates rapid and extreme fluctuations of level. Eight major climatic cycles are recorded during Würm glaciation when the level fluctuated between -180 m m.s.l. and probably lower than -400 m m.s.l. Rocksalt was deposited within both basins during warm dry phases of the Lisan stage. At the present state of knowledge no specific tectonic or volcanic activities can be tied to these climatic events. The Holocene Period was similar lithologically to that of the Lisan Formation and transition between them was gradual. Primarily the difference between the two was change in relative time span between alternate wet and dry phases. Dry phases of Holocene gradually became longer while wet ones with Dead Sea transgressions became shorter. Tectonic regimes during the first part—the Natufian age to Early Bronze III, 12,000 to 4400 B.P.—seem to have been milder than later ones, end of Early Bronze III to the present. The severe earthquake that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah in 4350 B.P. was followed by a 300-year long subphase of gradually warming climate that became extremely dry during the latter part of the Intermediate Bronze age. Climatic Wet Phase III began about 3900 B.P. It was the longest, about 800 years, and most intense wet phase of Holocene and it probably was associated with volcanism. No abrupt cultural or demographic changes are known during transition from Epi-Paleolithic or Geometric Kebaran from the last glacial phase of the Pleistocene Period through Natufian to the early part of Holocene Pre-Pottery Neolithic. The reason for this stability is not clear especially because average temperatures of global oceans during the latest Pleistocene glaciation were appreciably lower than those during Early Holocene (Emiliani, 1978).