Platform to shelf edge transect, Triassic of northern Israel, North Arabian Plate

A transect of the Middle to Late Triassic from the epicontinental belt to the shelf edge of the north Arabian margin is presented, based on new data from two boreholes in northern Israel. Two sedimentary systems are encountered along this traverse: the inland Meged-2 borehole represents the seaward extension of the epicontinental belt, with shallow- to deep-water carbonates, salina evaporites, and basinal shales, while Ga'ash-2, on the Levant margin, was positioned on an isolated platform separating the internal shelf-basin system from the open Tethys, displaying a shallower range of facies that is free of evaporites. Proximal-distal facies shifts are bundled into five low-order (LO) T–R cycles, ranging from Anisian (Pelsonian) to Norian, each composed of numerous high-order (HO) shallowing-upwards cycles. Meged-2 paleoenvironments imply an interior basin trapping sediments of the epicontinental belt, with numerous HO facies shifts indicating pulses of subsidence. Ga'ash-2 contains Lofer-like peritidal cycles and a late Anisian — early Carnian hiatus in place of the second LO cycle. The two orders of cycling are controlled by extrabasinal regional or eustatic change, and synsedimentary vertical movements. The divergent sedimentary patterns of the late Anisian–late Carnian can be attributed to NW–SE trans-tensile movements impacting on earlier Neotethyan extensional trends. Synsedimentary movements, represented locally by uplift at Ga'ash-2 and subsidence at Meged-2, controlled the influx of sea water into the epicontinental zone, and consequently, controlled the alternation of evaporite vs. carbonate systems. In the latest Carnian–early Norian, these facies belts become locked together forming a shallow, high energy shelf. This change reflects broad uplift and shifting of the locus of active differential movement into the Levant Basin.