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Honorary members of the Geological Society
Honorary members of the Geological Society
Honorary members of the Geological Society
Day tours for the general public
Year 2018
background
As part of an approach that sees the importance of making geology science accessible to the public in Israel, the President of the Geological Society for 2018-19, Zohar Gvirtzman (Geological Institute and the Hebrew University), initiated a day of tours for amateurs and interested parties. Six tours took place during the 2009 Hanukkah holiday under the guidance of geologists from the Geological Society and in the organization of field schools and seminaries in the Golan Heights, Western Galilee, Jordan Valley, Judean Plain and Gush Etzion, Ramon Crater and Arava. This initiative is planned to continue in the coming years.
Thanks to the Society for the Protection of Nature who came to help and to the Sde Galil, Golan, Har Hanegev, Eilat-Arava, Kfar Etzion and Midreshet Shomron schools that carried out the actual tours.
Thanks to the instructors who volunteered for the mission: Ariel Heiman (Golan), Dorit Sivan and Meir Edrei (Western Galilee Coast), Amos Frumkin (Jordan Valley), Zohar Gvirtzman (from the lowlands to the mountain), Yaron Finzi and Avshalom at the Av Beit Din (Ramon Crater), Hanan Ginat ( willow).
And thanks to the members of the Geological Society committee, Elhanan Zucker, Yechiel Ben Zeev, Ido Sirota and Shlomi Weiner, without whose help the day of the tours would not have taken place.
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A tour of the Golan
Organization : Sde Golan School.
Instruction : Dr. Ariel Heiman.
The tour is conducted by bus, the degree of difficulty is easy.
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The route:
Nefah Junction, section of the road near Nefah Junction, Mount Avital, Mount Bentel, Mount Brown, Plaumagnetism Point, the Great Juba, Birkat Ram, Mount Keremim observation point.
Geological background:
The Golan Heights is made up of basaltic volcanoes (volcanoes). The plateau, is part of a huge volcanic field, a-named after it, that stretches west of Saudi Arabia, through Jordan and Syria and ends in the northwest of the Golan. The Golan Heights is a relatively young geological phenomenon and eruptions in the Golan have occurred in the last millions of years. On our tour, we will observe classic volcanic phenomena. We will understand the source of the basalt, the formation of volcanoes, as well as interesting and unique phenomena. The tour will be at a level that is understandable to all and is intended for amateurs including those who know nothing about the subject.
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Western Galilee Coast Tour
Organization : Sde Galil School.
Instruction : Dr. Dorit Sivan (Department of Marine Civilizations, Haifa) and Dr. Meir Edrei (Department of Marine Civilizations, Haifa)
The tour was conducted in private vehicles. Medium difficulty.
The route :
Rosh Hanikra at the lookout point near the entrance to the cable car. Rosh Hanikra Beach: A short walk along the coast: Evidence of sea levels in the previous interwar period (about 125,000 years ago), Tel Achziv: An important port city without a port? , Shavei Zion - Archaeological Finds from the Coast and the Sea, Yosef Beach: Additional Evidence for Sea Levels in the Previous Interglacial Period. Tel Acre: Observation of the surrounding plain, ancient roads and the tell: History of the area in the last 4000 years.
Geological background :
The tour will combine relatively young geology (the last climatic cycle of the high seas - ice ages and thawing of the sea and warming to the present day) and the human history of the Galilee coast in the last 4000 years. We will try to present what the area looked like at different time periods: where the coastline was on a scale of tens of thousands of years and what the settlement map looked like in the last thousands of years.
The tour is suitable for all ages, including families and intelligent and curious children of school age. It has no physical difficulty: short walks and flat terrain.
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A tour of the Jordan Valley
Organization : Midreshet Shomron and the Jordan Valley Council.
Supervision : Professor Amos Frumkin.
The route includes hard walking on steep slopes and free climbing.
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The route :
Meeting at the Sonol gas station at the entrance to Ariel. Burj al-Malih (Har al-Burj), Ras a-Ramli, Ras Abu Shosha, observation from Umm Zuka (Peles), foot descent to Siddat a-Talb, Nahal Talchid / Piran
Geological background :
A time travel over a quarter of a billion years, from the Jurassic Park of Samaria through violent eruptions of the volcanoes to the tongue lake that flooded the rift.
We climbed through a huge rock that sculpted the rain into a forgotten Crusader fortress rich in scenery, crossed a coral reef on the way to colorful sandstone cliffs, and fell through with the help of ladders in a narrow and steep canyon gorge.
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We will discuss sea, land and volcanism, rocks and landscape of mountain and rift. We will visit selected geological sections in the Kemer Tirza in order to analyze processes that formed the rock, tectonics and morphology of the center of the country and the north.
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A tour from the lowlands to the mountain
Organization : Kfar Etzion Field School.
Supervision : Professor Zohar Gvirtzman.
The tour is conducted in private vehicles, the degree of difficulty is easy.
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The route:
Departure from the Ella junction (in the plaza under the gas station) at 9:00. The sites we will visit are the Ella Valley, the Road 6 interchange near Kiryat Gat, Khirbet Tzora, the Hala checkpoint and the Alef lookout. End at the plaza at the foot of the Alef lookout in Neve Daniel at approximately 16:00.
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Geological background:
Until thirty-five million years ago, all of Israel-Lebanon-Syria-Jordan-Iraq-and parts of Egypt and Saudi Arabia were covered by the waters of the Tethys Ocean. This ancient ocean separated Africa from Eurasia and created a continuous sea connection between the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The array of continents and seas was very different from that known today. Then processes began to operate inside the Earth that lifted the Middle East above sea level, made the Tethys Ocean disappear and instead created a new ocean (the Red Sea) between Arabia and Africa. In Israel, a central mountain boulevard was created between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, and a landscape model of a mountain, lowland and coastal plain was established. What are the processes capable of producing mountains and creating oceans? How are the processes that determined the landscape in our region related to the strong volcanic activity in East Africa? We will try to answer that on the tour. We will focus on field findings that show when and how the Israeli mountain boulevard was raised and we will use this information as a key to understanding the major regional processes.
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A tour of the Ramon Crater
Organization : Har Hanegev Field School and Har Hanegev Tourism Ministry.
Instruction : Dr. Yaron Finzi and Avshalom at the Av Beit Din.
The tour was conducted in private vehicles. Designed for the well-wishers.
The route :
Meeting on the observation deck on the Albert promenade in Mitzpe Ramon, walking along the promenade, descending from the cliff into the Ramon Crater via Ma'ale Brosh, basalt tentacles, Nahal Ramon, Shen Ramon, the ammonite wall, ending on Route 40, picking up and transporting back to Mitzpe Ramon
Geological background :
Ramon Crater is the largest erosive crater in the world, and one of the five erosive craters in the Negev. The crater itself is a relatively young geological phenomenon, but it reveals rock formations from the exposed antiquities in the country - from the Yura and Triassic periods. In the tour we will talk about the common explanation for the formation of the craters and the geological evidence that led to its establishment. We will cross the crater and meet the ancient rocks in its heart, and visit Shen Ramon - from a magmatic room that penetrated the area during the Lower Cretaceous, a period of extensive magnetic activity in the area.
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In recent years, a process of announcing the Ramon Crater and the Land of the Craters in general as a geopark - a tourist geological park that is a partner in a global geoparks network - has been promoted. The geopark combines unique natural phenomena together with a local community that preserves and earns a living from this resource and maintains education, conservation and access to science activities in the locality and its surroundings. The declaration of the Land of the Makhteshim as a geopark will help promote environmental education and tourism programs, the development of dedicated geological routes, the accessibility of information to the public and more.
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A tour of the Arava
Organization : Eilat Field School and Ayelet Regional Council.
Instruction : Dr. Hanan Ginat.
The tour is free of charge. Medium difficulty.
The route :
Meet at the buffet at Kibbutz Yotvata. Mount Ait and the cracks of Mount Ait, Nahal Grofit next to the waterfall, possibility of descending on foot to the Grofit level, Nahal Yetro and walking to the Great Dune, Cracks of Shaharut and observation of the Arava, end of the tour in Bitvata
Geological background :
The Replica Cliff borders the southern Arava to the west and forms the boundary that separates the southern Negev from the Arava. The cliff was formed mainly by a system of replicas directed north-south. Its roof has a groove configuration and a light configuration at the bottom.
A crack system develops along the cliff which is a gravitational response to pressure differences along its length. The Grofit River has undergone a reversal in the direction of the drainage and in its eastern part near the cliff it now flows east.
At the foot of the cliff an inner basin developed in which alluvial sediments accumulated.
On the eastern edge of the Ovda Valley in the Kessui Vitaro streams, sand grains have accumulated, some of which are calcareous and some of which are built of quartz. The grains are found in climbing sand dunes, falling and also of the fencing and barking type.
