Faunal evidence of a Holocene pluvial phase in Southern Arabia with remarks on the morphological variability of Helenina anderseni

• Although foraminifera have been found living in inlandsaline lakes isolated from the sea, this phenomenon has rarelybeen recognized in the fossil record. This study documents theoccurrence of benthic foraminifera in Holocene lake sedimentslocated nearly 500 km inland from the Red Sea, in theAl-Mundafan region of southern Saudi Arabia. The lakeformed during a regional pluvial period, 10,500–6000 yr BP.The presence of foraminifera and brackish charophytes in thestudied section represent an interval when the lake wasslightly brackish due to high evaporation. The studiedsediments yielded a bispecific benthic foraminiferal faunacomprised of Helenina anderseni and Trichohyalus aguayoi,as well as the brackish charophyte genus Lamprothamnium.The benthic foraminifera are species characteristic ofmangrove swamps, salt marshes, and lagoons, which areenvironments currently widespread along the Red Sea coasts.Because the Al Mundafan area was never connected to the seaduring the Quaternary, wading birds must have been thevector that transported the foraminifera to the paleolake

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Multidisciplinär geovetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Geosciences, Multidisciplinary (hsv//eng)

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kvartärgeologi

Quarternary Geology

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