Geology
The geological investigation will focus on:
- The paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Upper Jordan Valley
- The general geological setting of the research area: structural control of the distribution of the outcrops of stratigraphic units that host the archaeological sites and their expected position in the subsurface
- The diverse sources of the sedimentary organic matter (algae, aqueous flora and terrestrial higher plants) that contributed to the sediment and their variation
Methodology: sedimentology, mineralogy (X-ray diffraction), inorganic geochemistry, organic geochemistry (biomarker compounds and compound specific carbon isotopes), isotope geochemistry (carbon, oxygen, sulfur, strontium)
The geochronological program (39Ar/40Ar in basaltic flows, cosmogenic isotopes and paleomagnetism in sediments) will be carried out by the collaborator John Gosse. This geochemical-geochronological record will complement the botanical, zoological and archaeological records derived, where appropriate, from the same samples.
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