The eastern Mediterranean phosphorite giants: An interplay between tectonics and upwelling

Abstract

About 20 billion tonnes of world-class, high-grade phosphorite resources occur in a small area of the eastern Mediterranean region, including Jordan, northern Negev (Palestine), northwestern Saudi Arabia, western Iraq, and southeastern Syria. Major deposits were formed during Campanian to Eocene times and contribute significantly to the economic development of these countries, particularly Jordan and Syria. The phosphorite deposits consist mainly of reworked granular material. The phosphate particles are peloids, such as pellets, intraclasts, nodules, coated grains and coprolites, and vertebrate fragments (bone and teeth). The phosphorite sequences are associated with extensive bedded chert, porcelanite, and organic-rich marls. The main phosphate mineral is francolite, a carbonate-rich variety of fluorapatite that has a relatively enhanced uranium content as a result of substitution for calcium in its crystal structure. Two factors are deemed responsible for the deposition of the phosphorites and their associated chert, porcelanite, and marl within this relatively restricted area. The first was a compressional event associated with the initial collision of the oceanic forefront of the Afro-Arabian Plate with the subduction trench of Eurasia that began in Turonian times and continued into the Eocene. This event resulted in gentle folding that produced the Syrian Arc, the Ha'il, Rutba, and Sirhan paleohighs and the Ga'ara Dome, which were loci for the deposition of phosphorites. The second factor was the obstruction and consequent upwelling of oceanic currents by these tectonic highs, enhanced by winds blowing from east to west along the southern platform margin of the Neo-Tethys Ocean. The intense upwelling was associated with the Tethyan Circumglobal Current that flowed along the Afro-Arabian platform on the southern margin of the Neo-Tethys Ocean. In contrast, relatively minor phosphorite deposition took place to the north in southern Europe. The upwelling spread cold, nutrient-rich oceanic water from the deep Neo-Tethys Ocean to the surface, thereby enhancing bioproductivity to produce organic-rich sediments. The subsequent authigenesis of phosphorites, their diagenesis and the reworking and winnowing of the phosphorite-rich sediments, concentrated the materials into economic deposits. Phosphorite deposition ended in the Late Eocene following the final collision of the Afro-Arabian Plate with Eurasia. The sub-aerial exposure of this formerly productive shallow-marine platform was the result of the separation of the Arabian Plate from the African Plate during the mid-Miocene.