Where: Lebanon (33.8° N, 35.7° E: paleocoordinates 9.4° N, 32.0° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Early/Lower Barremian (130.0 - 125.5 Ma)

• Amber found in three intervals in the upper part of the Grès du Liban. The upper interval is above the “Banc de Mrejatt,” the middle interval is between the “Banc de Mrejatt” and a pisolitic interval below, and the lower interval is below the pisolitic beds. The "Banc de Mrejatt" includes one biostratigraphically significant benthic foraminifer: Eopalorbitolina transiens (Cherchi and Schroeder, 1999), which is a zonal marker of the Lower to Upper Barremian transition according to Schroeder et al. (2010). Accordingly the “Banc de Mrejatt” is correlated to the transgression of sequence Ba3 of Clavel et al. (2007) and ascribed a late Early Barremian age. The pisolitic interval or “calcaires à pisolithes” of Heybroek (1942), consists of lacustrine shales and marls, locally with pisolites ranging in size from a hazel nut to an orange. Charophyte remains (thalli, utricles, and gyrogonites) are commonly found in this interval (Grambast and Lorch, 1968; Granier et al., 2015). According to Martín-Closas (2015, personal communication), the charophyte association should refer to the Cruciata-Paucibracteatus biozone of Martín-Closas et al. (2009) that spans the Late Barremian–Early Aptian interval. However, due to its topographic location, this interval is older than the “Banc de Mrejatt” and should be considered at least Early Barremian in age (Maksoud et al., 2017, 2022). The entomofaunal similarity of these three intervals could imply that the age of the amber should be the same, i.e., that of the older/lower interval. Amber pieces found in the middle and upper intervals are rounded and commonly bored by martesiine pholadid bivalves.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; lithified amber

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: soft parts, original chitin, amber

Collection methods: Repository: Natural History Museum of the Lebanese University, Faculty of Sciences II, Fanar, Lebanon. Discovered by Dany Azar and Sibelle Maksoud in 2012.

Primary reference: A. V. Kovalev, A. G. Kirejtshuk, and D. Azar. 2013. The oldest representatives of the family Throscidae (Coleoptera: Elateriformia) from the Lower Cretaceous Lebanese amber. Cretaceous Research 44:157-165 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 146535: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 26.06.2013

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)