Dana Zaghal

Current research

Insights into the limnology of Lake Erk-el-Ahmar: a window into the Pliocene environmental conditions in the Levant

Many different proxies can be used to evaluate paleoenvironmental conditions. A series of sedimentological and geochemical proxies provide information about the physical and chemical properties of a deposit, but fossils also can be used to characterize aspects of depositional circumstances, particularly in aquatic settings. Ostracods, which are small bivalved crustaceans, are one such group that is ideal for constraining attributes of lacustrine and palustrine sequences. This is because they are very diverse and occur in a wide range of aquatic environments and salinities, with individual species often having specific environmental tolerances, making them particularly useful for identifying environmental shifts through time. Additionally, ostracods are microfossils and are relatively abundant even in small amounts of sediment, making them ideally suited for investigations involving drill cores or in instances when collecting large sediment samples might be challenging. By using a multi-proxy approach, these two sites can be compared with respect to their paleoenvironmental response to climate-driven change. In the current project, ostracod samples will be collected from the Erk el Ahmar Fm, a Pliocene lacustrine record exposed in the Jordan Valley. The current project will be connected to several ongoing and planned projects investigating the paleoclimate of the Levantine Corridor.