LATE PERMIAN OSTRACODES FROM THE NEGEV, ISRAEL: DEPOSITIONAL ENVIRONMENT AND PALEOBIOGEOGRAPHY

Thirty five Late Permian ostracode species from subsurface samples of the David-1 and Emunah-1 wells in the Negev, including three new species, have been identified. Together with previously recorded species, the total number of Late Permian ostracodes from Israel now amounts to forty-four. The local ostracode zone, renamed the Sargentina (P) Assemblage Zone, is indicative of a normal marine neritic environment of deposition. The Late Permian signals the recovery of global sea level due to the melting of the Early Permian continental glaciers and the transgression of a shallow epeiric sea over the margins of the Arabian platform. As a consequence of these changes in sea level and climatic conditions, the transgressive event also records a change in the overall composition of the sediments from predominantly siliciclastic to carbonate. The Permian of the Levant is characterized by a depocenter crossing Israel in a northeasterly direction from northern Sinai to the Palmyrian Basin in Syria. This depocenter consisted of a relatively narrow basin the deposits of which include the fusilinid-limestones of the ‘Arqov Formation and a band of clastics equivalent to the Amanous Formation in Syria. The carbonates appear to pinch out toward the southeast where they are replaced by clastics. Some ostracode species display distinct Mesozoic features and may be the precursors of the faunal renewal during Early to Late Triassic times. The Late Permian Negev ostracode genera Sargentina, Sulcella, Arqoviella, and Hollinella show an affinity to Late Permian faunas from Turkey, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, South China, Hungary, Greece, Caucasus, and the United States. Warm equatorial surface currents distributed the ostracode larvae, possibly on algae, between the western Pangaean and paleo-Tethyan faunal realms.