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Nadya Teutsch (Geological Survey) and Iris Zohar (former postdoc, now at the Academic College of Tel-Hai) surveying a coring site.
Environmental reconstruction using wetland sediments
As a child, I grew up next to a seasonal pond in the Israeli coast that fills every Winter and dry in the Summer. This small wetland was my first natural playground, and that’s the place where I started my life as a scientist.
In the picture, my first science group at the Dora Pond. The picture was taken by my father somewhere at the end of the 70's of last century.
Since then, I returned to this beautiful environment to study the environmental pollution history, climate and land cover changes based on short and long sediment cores using a variety of paleo-proxies.
The Dora pond watershed land cover changed in the Anthropocene leaving evidence in Lead-210 dated cores. Construction activities lead to increase in coarse sediment accumulation and pollution transport to the pond.
This study is done in collaboration with Dr. Nadya Teutch from the Geological survey of Israel and Prof. Noam Levin from the Hebrew University.
Publication:
Zohar, I., Teutsch, N., Levin, N., Mackin, G., de Stigter, H. and Bookman, R., 2017. Urbanization effects on sediment and trace metals distribution in an urban winter pond (Netanya, Israel). Journal of Soils and Sediments, 17(8), pp.2165-2176.
The interplay between sea level and sediment supply
During Holocene sea-level rise, coastal areas became transitional environments as marine incursion covered the land. Changing conditions resulted in dynamic depositional environments that recorded the migration and stabilization of modern shorelines. These processes are viewed in the Zevulun Plain (Haifa Bay, Israel) record located in the northern edge of the Nile littoral cell. Sedimentological and palaeontological analyses combined with dating enabled the reconstruction of the Holocene chrono-stratigraphical frame.
Publication:
Elyashiv, H., Bookman, R., Zviely, D., Avnaim-Katav, S., Sandler, A. and Sivan, D., 2016. The interplay between relative sea-level rise and sediment supply at the distal part of the Nile littoral cell. The Holocene, 26(2), pp.248-264.
A late Quaternary record from a coastal pools and seasonal ponds
Core records reveled the geological history of the last ~100 ka in the Israeli coast. Grain size distribution integrated with biological and geochemical proxies presents a dynamic depositional environment controlled by sea level fluctuations and climate.
A core from the Timsaẖ springs and wetlands at the Carmel Mt. coast presenting a rich biological record
Coring the Dora Pond late Quaternary record. OSL dating reveled a ~100 ka record of environmental conditions. Image by Mikhail Markin, PhD student.
Fossilized sand dune remains on the Caesarea Roman Aqueduct
Aeolianite ridges (locally termed ‘Kurkar’) are fossilized dunes that comprise a prominent Quaternary geomorphic feature along many low- to mid-latitude coasts. The forcing factors that control dune construction and aeolianite calcification vary and are generally understood to reflect environmental and climatic conditions such as sea level, strong wind power, fetch, and sand and carbonate availability. By combining up-to-date and high-resolution GPR, quantitative field imagery, sedimentology and dating, we propose to explain the development of aeolianite sections, estimate their build-up rates, reveal their environmental prerequisite conditions and forcing factors, and suggest possible tele-connections to hemispheric atmospheric circulation and millennial-scale climatic oscillations.
This study is done in collaboration with Dr. Joel Roskin from the Antiquities Authority and Dr. Sagi Filin from the Israel Institute of Technology
Sand dunes and aeolinites
Research opportunity!
If you wish to study the anatomy, evolution and environmental interpretation of aeolianites using high resolution GPR, Lidar imaging and dating techniques contact us.
Holocene appearance, chronology and drivers of beach sand deposition and inland aeolian sand transport were studied around the Roman–Byzantine ruins of Caesarea, Israel. The study illustrates the initial role of natural processes, in this case decline in global sea level rise and the primary and later role of fluctuating human activity upon coastal sand mobility. The study distinguishes between sand sheets and dunes and portrays them as sensors of environmental changes.
Publication:
Roskin, J., Sivan, D., Shtienberg, G., Roskin, E., Porat, N. and Bookman, R., 2015. Natural and human controls of the Holocene evolution of the beach, aeolian sand and dunes of Caesarea (Israel). Aeolian Research, 19, pp.65-85.
Beachrocks and the coastal carbonate system
Beachrock is a coastal rocky formation present within the intertidal zone and represents a fossil section of a former coast, rapidly cemented by the precipitation of carbonate cements. During lithification, the loose sediment transform into sedimentary rock mainly through chemical cementation processes, in which crystals are form as a cement around sediment and biogenic grains and consolidate them.
Our study focuses on field observations, petrography analysis, and carbonate geochemistry of beachrock exposers along the Israeli coast with the intention to revel their development process in the frame of the late Quaternary sea level and climatic conditions.
This study is done in collaboration with Prof. Dov Zviely and Dr. Eud Galili.
(Right) High-resolution microscopy for the study of beachrock cementation. Images by Amir Bar, PhD student.
Coastal Ground water discharge
During two-year period water samples were taken from a spring near Tel-Shikmona, on the northern Israeli coast to study alkalinity, salinity, dissolved inorganic nutrients and carbon cycles. The results indicate that the alkalinity flux into the Mediterranean from groundwater discharge is significant and could be an important and previously overlooked feedback mechanism for the anthropogenic increase and glacial/interglacial variations in atmospheric CO2.
This study was done in collaboration with Dr. Jack Silverman and Prof. Barak Herut from IOLR.
Publication:
Kolker, D., Bookman, R., Herut, B., David, N. and Silverman, J., 2021. An initial assessment of the contribution of fresh submarine ground water discharge to the alkalinity budget of the Mediterranean Sea. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, p.e2020JC017085.
(Left) Groundwater sampling sites on the coast and monthly TA during the study period (2015-2017) and the corresponding rain volume in the region. Image by Dina Kollker, MSc.
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