Issa M. Makhlouf

Hashemite University | HU · Earth and Environmental Sciences

Late Pleistocene travertine deposits along the Jordan Valley and the north-east margin of the Dead Sea were identified at three locations: Deir Alla, Suwayma and Az Zara areas. The main objectives were to study in detail their lithofacies, sedimentological properties, depositional environments and morphological characteristics. The travertine litho...

The Late Pleistocene travertine outcrops from Deir Alla, Suwayma, and Az Zara were investigated, and their microfacies were identified. The microfacies of the Deir Alla travertines include micrite and spar groundmass, shrubs, crystalline crusts, a stromatolite-like structure, peloids, and cements. Shrub travertine includes spar calcite-coated stems...

Hydrochemical Evaluation of Molybdenum Content of the Groundwater Aquifer System in Northern Jordan Tasneem H Hiasat1*, Omar A. Rimawi1, Issa M. Makhlouf2 1Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, The University of Jordan, Amman, Jordan. 2Department of Earth Sciences and Environment, The Hashemite University, Zarqa, Jordan. DOI: 10.4236/jwarp.2...

Abstract The groundwater quality of Wadi Al Arab aquifer, northwest Jordan, was as- sessed for its high molybdenum concentrations, which reach 1.62 mg/L. This value of Mo-concentration was far beyond the Jordan Institution for Stan- dards and Metrology (JISM) and World Health Organization (WHO) guide- lines. Hydro-geochemical studies were carried...

Travertine deposits in Deir Alla, Suwayma, and Az Zara areas were investigated. Mineralogy, geochemistry, stable isotopes and age dating indicate the presence of low-Mg calcite, with minor quartz components. The variable isotope (δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O) signatures indicate dependence on water temperature and water/rock isotopic exchange. In contrast, the hi...

The Ordovician Umm Sahm Sandstone Formation of Jordan comprises approximately 200-m-thick succession of fluvial quartzarenites with subordinate claystone and siltstone lithologies of shallow marine conditions. The Umm Sahm Formation is characterized by its dark brown color, frequent jointing, and steep scarps. The Umm Sahm Formation is bounded by t...

Quartz geodes are spectacularly displayed at Ras En Naqab where hundreds of geodes have weathered from their host chalky limestone and sandstone beds and scattered on slope surfaces. Geodes of different sizes, shapes and fillings appear in four horizons of the shallow marine sediments of the Upper Cretaceous Wadi Umm Ghudran Formation in South Jord...

Quartz geodes are spectacularly displayed at Ras En Naqab where hundreds of geodes have weathered from their host chalky limestone and sandstone beds and scattered on slope surfaces. Geodes of different sizes, shapes and fillings appear in four horizons of the shallow marine sediments of the Upper Cretaceous Wadi Umm Ghudran Formation in South Jord...

The Middle to early Late Ordovician Hiswah and Dubaydib Formations in southern Jordan provide a well constrained sedimentary record of 4th and 3rd order relative sea level change along the northern, tectonically quiescent, subpolar Gondwana continental margin. Cyclic deposition occurred on a wave- and storm-dominated, microtidal shelf, dominated by...

The Lower Palaeozoic (Upper Ordovician–Silurian) succession of North Africa contains one of the world's most prolific black shale source rocks, yet the origin of these rocks remains contentious. The black shale of the Batra Formation in Jordan was deposited at high palaeolatitude during rapid Hirnantian to early Silurian deglaciation. Here we repor...

The Abu Ruweis Formation is composed of carbonates, evaporites, and mudstones, with some locally developed pelletic, oolitic and stromatolitic limestones. The lateral persistence of bedding, the purity of the evaporite rocks, the alternating arrangement of marine carbonates and evaporites indicates periodic deposition in subaqueous conditions (sali...

The Early Mesozoic record of northern Gondwana was strongly influenced by sea level fluctuations during the opening of the Neotethys Sea. Detailed facies analysis of the Late Triassic / Early Jurassic Abu Shaybah Fm (Libya, western Mediterranean), and the Triassic Mukheiris Fm (Jordan, eastern Mediterranean) documents the transgressions and regress...

OSL dating of weakly consolidated, root-bound, non-calcareous quartz arenites in northeast Jordan, currently assigned to the Plio–Pleistocene Azraq Formation, suggests a Middle Pleistocene (652 ± 47 ka) age. The sandstones are up to 15.5 m thick and overlain by a 2.5 m thick Holocene gypcrete caprock. Facies and textural analyses suggest that the s...

The Late Ordovician (Ashgillian) glacial deposits in southern Jordan, comprise a lower and upper glacially incised palaeovalley system, occupying reactivated basement and Pan-African fault-controlled depressions. The lower palaeovalley, incised into shoreface sandstones of the pre-glacial Tubeiliyat Formation, is filled with thin glaciofluvial sand...

The upper Ordovician succession of Jordan was located ∼60°S, less than 100 km from the Hirnantian ice sheet margin. New graptolite dates indicate glaciation ended in Jordan in the late Hirnantian (persculptus Biozone). The succession records two glacial advances within the Ammar Formation and the subsequent deglaciations. Organic-rich black shales...

The geodes have a wide spectrum of sizes, shapes, and fillings. They have a wide areal distribution but are confined to the narrow fossiliferous portion of the Lower Tar member and thus represent a distinctive marker. The geodes formed at the sites of shells and skeletons of corals, bivalves and echinoids, which were completely dissolved during dia...

Our knowledge of the patterns and processes associated with the Hirnantian glaciation has been largely derived from the study of low latitude circum-Iapetus Ocean sections. The positive carbon isotope excursion, 5-7 per mil, that characterises the glaciation in this ocean, and which appears to be coincident with a 2-3 per mil oxygen isotopic excurs...

The Triassic (Anisian) Mukheiris Formation is exposed along the northeastern margins of the Dead Sea area, and encompasses all those sediments preserved between the Triassic Hisban and Iraq al Amir formations. It attains a thickness of at least 108m, and comprises two subdivisions defined here: a lower tidal unit and an upper fluvial unit. The pres...

Upper Ordovician (Ashgillian) glacial deposits of the Ammar Formation, Southern Jordan, comprise locally deformed, structureless fine sandstone, incised by glacial channels filled by braided outwash plain sandstones and transgressive marine mudstones. The structureless sandstones, previously interpreted as a glacial rock flour or loessite derived f...

Abstract High-angle accumulations of sand and escarpment-derived gravel along the outcrop walls of Plio-Pleistocene sandstones, eastern Jordan, form small, coalesced colluvial fans, built by rockfalls, rockfall-derived debris flows, dry sandfalls and sandy grainflows. These deposits are sourced through wind erosion of fault-controlled outcrops of w...

The early Triassic Dardur Formation, exposed along the northeastern margin of the Dead Sea area, comprises some 63 m of siliciclastic and carbonate rocks, arranged in two coarsening-upward sequences. Each sequence begins with a heterolithic facies (silty shale dolomite and marlstone) and terminates with a sandstone facies.The occurrence of mixed ca...

The Permian Umm Irna Formation in central Jordan consists of a 60 m thick sequence of clastic sediments which can be divided into two fluvial sedimentary facies. The lowermost facies (1) is characterized by the presence of five sandstone-dominated fining-upward sequences, each sequence comprising an erosively based coarse- to fine-grained, trough c...

The Umm Ishrin Sandstone Formation between Wadi Manshala and Wadi Abu Khusheiba, along the northeastern margin of the Dead Sea, consists of a quartz arenite facies and a subordinate heterolithic facies of siltstone and mudstone with sandy lenses. The former are trough cross-bedded with unidirectional northwesterly mode. The Umm Ishrin sediments wer...

The eastern rim of Wadi Araba in southwest Jordan displays distinct alluvial fans, which were developed since the time of formation of the Dead Sea Transform (DST), initiated in Mid Miocene times. The DST fault system controlled the development of the alluvial fans and their stacking pattern. Siliciclastic sediments were supplied from the east, and...