Francois Helou – Lebanon

 

 

• Mr. Helou, you were graduated as a biologist.  Among the courses you’ve studied, paleontology attracted you, so fossils hunting became your passion. Please tell us about it.

Yes, it is true, but I should draw your attention to the fact that I was born and raised in Jezzine which is one of the richest fossils localities in southern Lebanon.  When I was a kid, while playing in our garden I used to find stones with shapes which I didn’t understand but loved to collect, yet, as you stated, hunting and collecting fossils became my passion, is when I started to study paleontology courses.  In fact, I have a large collection that I preserve in my own place which is not yet exposed to the public.  I’m just waiting for a proper occasion.

 

• Can you tell us more about Jezzine’s fossils? How you can determine their age?

It is known that the paleontological spots in Lebanon cover the best-preserved thousands of various kinds of fossils that are considered among the best in the world and include some species found nowhere else.

In Jezzine, there is a rich variety of fossils that date back alike other spots in Lebanon to the Superior Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous periods.

Jezzine’s fossils, generally, age 60-70 million to 200 million years.  For instance, the Ammonite, Bivalve, Gryphaea, Brachiopod and Saint Jack fossils that were marine animals are often found in the outcrops sedimentary rocks of Jezzine’s mountain.  They are the young contemporary species that belong to the Devonian to Cretaceous periods.

Also, Dr. Dany Azar, Professor of paleontology at the Lebanese University who we consider, fossils collectors, our “Godfather”, found in southern Jezzine in 2007, two complete teeth of a Brachiosaurus in fluvial deposits already well known for amber.  These teeth date back to 130 million years, where prehistoric insects have been trapped by resins or gums of plants origin mainly conifer trees to form the fossils over the years.

Dr. Azar presumed in his study that, that era’s Brachiosauruses were long-necked herbivores measuring up to 25 meters long and weighing as much as 50 tons and that the vegetation at that time must have been rich to support creatures of this size.  It is the zenith time when, the Middle East was in the northwestern part of a supercontinent called Gondwana, which later pulled apart to form the continents that are familiar to us today.

As for your question about how the age of a fossil can be determined; for your information, each fossil is buried with its own “birth certificate” that includes fairly enough of proofs that allow scientists to write down its precise age, kind of organism it represents, how the organism lived, and how it was preserved.

Comparing a fossil to other fossil species from the same period can determine its age, so based on primate fossil records, scientists know that living primates evolved from fossil primates through an evolutionary history of thousands of millions of years.

Scientists need to study how features and primates evolved and changed by time, so the age of each fossil primate needs to be identified for those fossils of the same age found in various spots of the world and fossils of different ages can be compared.

In fact, there are general methods that allow scientists to date geological elements to determine the age of fossils also ranges of expansive dating techniques were set by experts to establish the right timescale of the Earth’s history, including the age and origin of life, the timing of mass extinctions and the record of human progression.

 

• Why the Amber fossils of Jezzine are special?

The amber fossils exist all over the globe, but what is special about Jezzine’s amber fossils is the wide species of prehistoric insects and plants that are the main factors to form fossils such as flies, beetles, spiders, moths, mites, larvae, worms, pollen, spores, ova, uni-cellular organisms, twigs, leaves, rootlets, mushrooms, a single tiny snail, tiny specks of metal, and liquid bubbles, in addition to various other objects that are not identified yet.

After all the term amber is derived from the Arabic name Anbar that represents over 100 varieties of fossils resins or gums of plants origin that have a very beautiful scent that attract insects and humans too, so you find amber perfume since the old days.  Note this, In Lebanon to indicate that a person is smelling good we say “he smells like Anbar”.

 

• Can you tell us in brief about the Pangea theory?

300 million years ago, earth didn’t have today’s 7 continents, but a massive supercontinent called Pangea that enclosed tectonics plates and was surrounded by a single ocean called Panthalassa.

Throughout the 3.5-billion-year history of the planet, many supercontinents have formed and broken up, as a result of the rotation of the Earth’s cloak and the movement of the tectonic plates, water movements and hurricanes.

The movement of the plates has been active for billions of years. Although it seems as though plates move very slowly by human standards, they move very fast by geologic ones.  For example, a motion of 5 centimeters per year adds up to 50 kilometers in one million years. As many of our plates have been in motion for millions of years, their positions have changed.  Scientists were able to determine where they were and where they will be in the future by studying surface structures, fossils, stones, and minerals.

 

• Where was the position of Jezzine at the very beginning?

When the oceans were formed, Jezzine was located in the equator that was rich with active marine animals, but later after 150 million years when the water extracted, Jezzine became a good land for flowering plants called gymnosperm, I myself have a fern plant imprint in my collection.

 

Photopraph: courtesy of Mr. Helou

 

At that time a strong land subsidence aroused from the north of Palestine to the north of Syria.  Traces of Jurassic and Cretaceous plates collapses appeared clearly in Jezzine it resulted the Jezzine famous waterfall.

 

Photopraph: courtesy of Mr. Helou

 

• As a fossils hunter, we assume that you have a rich collection that we are hunger to learn more about it and about its preservation, and what you aim to do with it?

My collection counts 800 specimens of fossils that are preserved in a suitable place.  Actually, these fossils were already preserved in the natural environments so they no more need sophisticated means and places to preserve them.

My target is to found a museum for my collection, but such project needs partners and investors who do not exist at present.  As you know I have a different business I run, but in case the museum is once established I might close my laboratory and focus on the museum’s management.

Interviewed by Mag. Marisa Avogadro Thomé, Argentina

Translator: Mrs. Hoda Zohrob, Lebanon

 

Photographs: courtesy of Mr. Helou

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER

 

Francois Helou

Born in Jezzine – Lebanon, in 1968

Married to Irina Fediy from Ukraine with three girls

Founder of Laboratoires d’Analyses Medicales

Presented his last lecture about Jezzine’s fossils in February 2019 at the HUB Cultural Center in Jezzine.

e-mail:  frhelou484@gmail.com