Recycled Lower Paleozoic Microfossils (Chitinozoa) in the Carboniferous of Sinai (Egypt) and Permo-Triassic of the Negev (Israel): Paleogeographic considerations

Ordovician-Silurian microfossils (chitinozoans, scolecodonts, acritarchs) and graptolite fragments are found within continental Carboniferous strata of Central Sinai (Egypt) and marine Permian and Triassic strata in the subsurface of southern Israel. Palaeocurrent measurements indicate that these Lower Paleozoic organic fragments must have been redeposited, since marine Ordovician-Silurian sediments are not found between the Gulf of Suez and the Dead Sea Rift. They were redeposited either as the result of the primary recycling, during Carboniferous-Triassic times, from Paleozoic rocks exposed along a semi-circular belt from Syria, through Jordan and Saudi Arabia to Egypt, or as the result of the secondary recycling of a Ordovician-Silurian deposition in Israel and Sinai prior to its Late Paleozoic uplift and removal to an eastward depocenter.