Comment on “Combustion metamorphism (CM) in the Nabi Musa dome: new implications for a mud volcanic origin of the Mottled Zone, Dead Sea area”, by: E. Sokol, I. Novikov, S. Zateeva, Ye. Vapnik, R. Shagam and O. Kozmenko, Basin Research (2010) 22, 414–438

Abstract

The paper by Sokol et al. (2010) deals with the “Mottled Zone” (MZ, or Hatrurim Formation) rocks exposed in Israel and Jordan. These rocks have been extensively studied by British (Wyllie et al., 1923; Lees, 1928; Milodowski et al., 1992), Israeli (Bentor et al., 1963; Kolodny & Gross, 1974; Gross, 1977; Burg et al., 1992, 1999; Gur et al., 1995), Jordanian (Khoury et al., 1985, 1992), Canadian, German and French geologists, mineralogists and geochemists. The studies included field mapping, mineralogy, stable isotope studies, palaeomagnetism and geochronology. There is hardly anything that could have been done with these rocks and was not done, at least to some degree. The consensus established after about ninety years of research is that these rocks were formed by surface combustion (combustion metamorphism, CM)) of near surface exposures of bituminous chalks and shales of the Maastrichtian-Paleocene Ghareb and Taqiye Formations (and its equivalents in Jordan), reaching temperatures as high as 1,000°C.