NAJAH BEN CHAABANE

A synthesis of biostratigraphic, isotope-stratigraphic, and paleoenvironmental records from the Callovian (Middle Jurassic) carbonate succession of Saudi Arabia and its global implications

by J.H. Messaoud, S. H. Alsaihati, N. Ben Chaabane, P. Razin, F. Van Buchem
Year: 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2025.105350

Extra Information

Earth-Science Reviews, 2025

Abstract

The Middle Jurassic Callovian Stage (~165.2–160.8 Ma) represents a pivotal interval in Earth’s history marked by climate change, both warming and cooling (glacio-eustasy), widespread organic matter accumulation, and perturbations in the carbon cycle. On the Arabian Plate, this stage witnessed the initiation of intrashelf basins, large-scale coral–stromatoporoid reef growth, and a glacio-eustatic sea level fluctuation. Detailed global reconstructions are, however, hindered by discontinuous stratigraphic records, significant hiatuses, and a lack of integrated datasets. Here we present a synthesis of sedimentological, biostratigraphic, chemostratigraphic, and paleoenvironmental data from a well preserved and extended (290 m thick) carbonate-dominated Callovian succession in Saudi Arabia, which is continuously exposed along a >1000 km long escarpment. We integrate legacy datasets of dispersed reports and theses, produced during the mapping campaigns in the 1980s–1990s, with reinterpreted published carbon-isotope curves and a new sedimentological section, with refined calcareous nannofossil biostratigraphy, using modern taxonomy, standardized biozonation, and a Bayesian age model. The C-isotope curve shows an early Callovian positive δ13C excursion in the upper part of the gracilis Ammonoid Zone, followed by a negative shift at the base of the anceps Zone coinciding with siliciclastic influx from the Arabian shield. δ13C values rise through the Middle Callovian global warming with enhanced organic carbon burial in the Arabian Plate. The late Callovian cooling phase records extensive coral–stromatoporoid bioherms terminated by a sea-level fall near the Callovian–Oxfordian boundary. This work establishes the Arabian Plate as a key northern Gondwanan reference point for Callovian chronostratigraphy and calibration of global paleoceanographic, depositional, and climatic trends.