The Cambrian sedimentary succession from the Wadi Zerqa Ma'in (northeastern Dead Sea area, Jordan): lithoiogy and fossil content

摘要

Results of a facies analysis (with a focus on carbonates) and a lithological revision of the sedimentary succession exposed at the classic Wadi Zerqa Ma'in locality on the northeastern shore of the Dead Sea are presented. Micropalaeontological investigations have been carried out here for the first time. Micro- and macrofossils are represented by echinoderms, hyoliths, brachiopods, trilobites, poriferans, calcimicrobes, and trace fossils. The hyolithellid Torellella sp. is reported for the first time from this paleogeographic region. The common trilobite Kingaspis campbelli (KING, 1923) indicates a stratigraphically little younger position than the only other trilobite taxon known from the area, Palaeolenus antiquus (CHERNYSHEVA, 1956). The outcrop represents a tidally influenced, marginal marine, regressive succession, deposited as the final act of a short-time transgression on the Arabian-Nubian Shield. Shallow-subtidal to intertidal, siliciclastic deposition has taken place probably under deltaic and/or estuary influence. Interbedded thin, open-marine, subtidal, and mostly high-energy carbonates point to some minor transgressive pulses during the generally regressive, but, discontinuously deposited tendency.