I was wondering if you had any hard data on eruptions in the Syria-Palestine-Israel area dating from 10,000 BC through about 600 BC. I've checked out Tom Simkin's Volcanoes of the World and while I found the names, latitudes and longitudes, I found very little involving scientific studies re: eruptions. The reason I ask is really quite specific. Recent archaeological excavations in Syria at two different sites have found clear evidence of what appear to be at least two distinct significant volcanic levels. The first seems to date to about 4200 BC and the second about 2200 BC. Both of these eruptions or series of eruptions "should be" related to the Syrian volcanic fields around the Jebel Kaukab but I can't find any articles to back up this theory... Any advice?

rocky Daniela Buia

Dear Daniela,

I searched the "Chronology" section of Volcanoes of the World for references to eruptions between 5950 B.C. and 500 B.C. The only known eruptions in the region were at Nemrut Dagi, a stratovolcano in eastern Turkey in 1662 and 531 B.C. These eruptions do not seem likely candidates for the volcanic deposits at the Syrian sites.

I searched a geology database called "GeoRef" using combinations of Syria with ash and volcano. I found only one useful reference:

Petrogenesis of garnet pyroxenite and spinel peridotite xenoliths of the Tell-Danun alkali basalt volcano, Harrat as Shamah, Syria, 1993, by Gregory A. Snyder, Lawrence A. Taylor, Eric A. Jerde, Yevgeniy Sharkov, Yevgeniy Laz'ko and S. Hanna (University of Tennessee's Planetary Geoscience Institute in Knoxville and the Russian Academy of Sciences) published in International Geology Review, v. 35, no. 12, p. 1104-1120.

The article contains 28 references which may (or may not be useful). You might also contact the geologist at University of Tennessee (seems they are some of the rare U.S. geologists that work in Syria).

UCLA has some good geologists. You might have to take one along next time you go to Syria.

Thanks for a challenging question. Good luck.

Steve Mattox, University of North Dakota 

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