6 Integrating 20 Years of Scientific Drilling in the East African-Syrian Rift: A Session In Honor of Andrew Cohen, Part I

Continental drilling extending from the East African Rift into western Asia has yielded transformative discoveries, altering our understanding of paleoenvironments, paleoclimatology, paleoecology, and paleoanthropology. This session, in honor of Andrew Cohen, will celebrate these successes and define new directions.

Sunday, 19 October 2025
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
HBGCC, 214A

The Dead Sea ICDP drilling project: Window into the hydroclimate and seismic history of the East Mediterranean-Levant during the past 220 kyr

Paper number: 6-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:30 AM – 8:50 AM

Authors

Abstract

The East Mediterranean is regarded as a “hot spot” of global warming effects. Modern observations document an increase in drought frequency in the Levant area (e.g., the civil war in Syria that followed years of drought and current droughts in Iran), accompanied by more intense precipitation and flooding. Climate models predict that such conditions will intensify in the future, impacting millions of people. Paleoclimate studies provide long-term data that complement the short modern observational record and model projections. The Dead Sea Deep Drilling Project (DSDDP) that was conducted in 2010-2011 by ICDP (International Continental Scientific Drilling Program) recovered a continuous sedimentary record of the late Quaternary lakes that occupied the tectonic depression of the Dead Sea Basin. The longest core DSDDP Hole 5017-1-A, reaching 456 meters below the lake sediment surface, and 1177 meters below mean sea level, recovered 220 kyr in the history of the lake. Over the past 14 years, numerous investigations have been done on the core material. Among significant achievements: the most prolonged and continuous paleoseismic record in the world; investigations of the massive salt (halite) sequences that dominated the lake’s sedimentary geochemical-environment during hyperarid periods, providing unprecedented information on the hydroclimate regime in the south Levant region during interglacials; investigations of the evolution of the unique Ca-chloride brine that circulated between the lakes and the regional aquifers during the glacial-interglacial periods. I will highlight some of these significant achievements in my talk. Last but not least, my talk is devoted to the memory of our dear friend the late Prof. Andy Cohen, who helped to promote the Dead Sea ICDP drilling project and was an initiator of the planned African-Syrian Rift Valley project that aims to compare and integrate data that were achieved from ICDP lakes drilling along this rift valley transect during the past two decade. We, the investigators of the various lakes, will undoubtedly continue with Andy's plans.    

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-412751

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