Growth and crises of the Late Albian - Turonian carbonate platform, west central Jordan: integrated stratigraphy and environmental changes

The depositional evolution and architecture of upper Albian to Turonian carbonate platforms of west central Jordan are reconstructed within this thesis. Therefore, global controlling factors (eustatic sea-level fluctuations, productivity events, orbital forcing) and regional factors ( tectonics, paleogeography, faunal and floral associations of the inner shelf) on platform development are considered. Furthermore, platform evolution and deposits of the study area are compared and discussed with time equivalent data of neighbouring areas on the Arabic plate and in the Tethyan realm. The results of sedimentology, biostratigraphy and facies investigations on washing samples, thin-sections and macrofossils, as well as from quantitative analyses of higher-frequent carbonate cycles are presented in three single articles, which are either published or submitted to international journals.