Middle Miocene corals from Midyan area, Northwestern Saudi Arabia
Low-diversity scleractinian corals were described systematically from the Middle
Miocene Wadi Waqb Member (Jabal Kibrit Formation) in the northwest of Saudi Arabia.
The fauna comprises nine species belonging to nine genera and four families:
Porites sp., Favites neglecta (Michelotti in D'Achiardi, 1868), Tarbellastraea reussiana
(Milne-Edwards & Haime, 1850), Acanthophyllia ampla (Reuss, 1871), Solenastrea
turonensis (Michelin, 1847), Thegioastraea roasendai Michelotti, 1871, Heliastraea
oligophylla (Reuss 1871), Heliastraea sp., and Siderastrea miocenica Osasco, 1896. The
identified corals were recorded previously from the Mediterranean basin, Portugal,
France, Spain, Romania, Catalonia, Sardinia, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Turin, Greece, Hungary,
and Bosnia basins. The decreasing richness or diversity pattern of the fauna is
attributed to the lack of possible exchange with zooxanthellate coral faunas of the
Indo-Pacific after the late Burdigalian, due to the closure of marine seaways through
the Middle East by emergent areas and northward rotation of the Arabian Peninsula.
Three major lithofacies have been described in Lajjun area, central Jordan, including
the phosphorite and intercalated limestone of the Al‐Hisa Phosphorite Formation,
as well as the…
The Late Pleistocene reef unit of the last interglacial marine isotope stage 5e stretches all over most of
the coastal cliffs and wadi cuts and interrupted only in wadi entrances along the…
Middle to Late Pleistocene coral reefs stretch in three discontinuously elevated units
above the present sea level between Duba and Sharma along the Red Sea coast,
northwest Saudi…