The pre-Quaternary geology of Israel

The country is largely underlain by normal continental crust, but under the Mediterranean continental margin the crust thins on passing to the Levant basin where the crust is semi-oceanic. The geologic history of Israel and of the surrounding areas can be divided into three main stages: a) The Late Precambrian Pan African orogenic stage, when the crystalline basement and the continental crust of the area where shaped. b) The Early Cambrian to mid-Cenozoic platformal stage in which the area was a part of the Arabo-African continent and behaved as a rather stable platform. c) The mid-Cenozoic to Recent rifting and continental breakup stage, during which Israel and the nearby areas were affected by important faulting, vertical motions and volcanism, all related to the breakup of the Arabo-African continent, producing the Dead Sea transform and the Red Sea and the Suez rift. -from Author