Gypsum as replacement of silicic tuff (tephra or pumice): Bardawil Lagoon, eastern Mediterranean

Abstract

Gypsum has replaced a tuff (tephra) or pumice in Bardawil Lagoon, a hypersaline body of water in the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula. The gyprock is a vugular pure gypsum. This rock was initially mistake for pumice; its vesicular texture suggested large-scale degassing. It is composed of angular and worn gypsum clasts bounded together by a gypsum cement. The texture is unlike that of any gypsum rock yet described. The initial tuff (tephra) or pumice, now replaced by gypsum, may be related to the most powerful eruption in recorded history, the Thera/Santorini eruption which spread over much of the eastern Mediterranean.