GEODIVERSITY AND ITS IMPORTANCE ON VERTEBRATE DIVERSITY NEAR RAZZAZA LAKE, MIDDLE OF IRAQ

The study area is located near Razazza Lake, southwest Karbala City, middle of Iraq. Data collections depended on field natural surveys. Geodiversity includes: rocks and minerals, land forms, type of soil and water resources. The main rock bed units are: sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, marl, limestone, dolostone, and gypsum. Landforms are: plateaus, dry wadis, hills, caves, sand sediments, lakes, marshes, ephemeral streams, Shithatha Plain, springs and sabkha. Types of soil are sandy on the plateau and near south part of Razaza Lake peach, while muddy and clayey soil near Shithatha and surrounding. Water resources are: Al-Majara canal, Al-Hassainiya canal, Karbala drainage canal, Razaza Lake, Shithatha springs and drilled wells, Ephemeral stream (Wadi Al-Ubaidh). Geodiversity is provides habitats and enhance biodiversity, therefore many habitats has been recognized, such as: Plateaus, Hills, Cliffs and Wadis, Sand sediments, Razaza Lake, marshes, Wadi Al-Ubaidh, Shithatha plain, Springs, sabkha. Vertebrate diversity in Razzaza Lake and adjacent areas belongs to five classes; Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia, Aves, and mammalian. It comprises 89 species including 78 genera, 57 families and 22 orders. It is found that structural units of habitats of the area have their own vertebrate faunas. Results showed that some species are common to all habitats mentioned here for example Merops superciliosus, Upupa epops ,Vulpes vulpes and Pipistrellus kuhlii; others seem to be utilize more than one habitat in the area for example Gambusia affinis, Canis aureus, Hyaena


INTRODUCTION
Geodiversity includes rocks, minerals, landforms, soils and water resources (Gray, 2004).Involved factors provide the framework for biologic and human life on earth (Stanley, 2002).Naturalists referred to important relationship between geodiversity and biodiversity.Geodiversity and natural processes sustain biosystems (Santucci, 2005).
Vertebrates diversity at Razzaza lake area, in its turn, was poorly studied and the relevant data belonged mainly to scattered notes in some taxonomic references for more than 60 years (for example, Hatt, 1959;Khalaf, 1959;Allouse, 1960Allouse, -1962;;and Harrison, 1968).Some recent efforts to survey the fauna of the Iraqi ecosystems including middle desert area were done like Mohammad et al. (2010); Mohammad and Ali (2013); Nature Iraq (2013); and Al-Sheikhly et al. (2015).
The aim of the present work is to update our knowledge on the current status of the vertebrate diversity and their distribution among the different geological structural units of the Razzaza Lake and its adjacent areas.

METHODS
Data's collection of this study depended on field survey during many field trips to the Razaza Lake and adjacent areas, south west Karbala City, middle of Iraq, to study geodiversity, ecosystems, habitats and vertebrates diversity.Determining the taxa identities depend on collecting whole or a part, their feces, hair, spines, or tracks of the footprints, observing, or photographing the vertebrate animal in the field.Iraq Natural History Museum records were consulted to compare present findings with the data obtained earlier.Interviews with local people and fishermen about animals in the studied area were also done.

Mohammad and Al-Zubaidi
Vol.50, No.1, 2017 -Location: Studied area is located southwest of Karbala City, near the southern part of Razaza Lake-middle of Iraq (Fig. 1).Tectonically, it is located on the Abu Jir fault zone which separates a stable platform on the west and an unstable platform on the east.
-Climate: It is play important role to form the earth surface and land forms near Razazza Lake.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Current study depends on geodiversity, habitats (ecosystems) and vertebrate diversity near Razaza Lake and adjacent areas.

Geodiversity
The main structural units of the studied area are two fault zones Abu Jir fault and Emam Ahmad Bin Hashim fault.Their depths are about 150 m and the directions are Northwest-Southeas (Al-Sakini, 1984;and Brazaniji and Yasi, 1987).Many researchers suggested that the water of Shithatha springs related to involved fault zones, which have about 10 Km in width (Abbas and Al-Khatib, 1982;and Al-Sakini, 1984).The geodiversity of studied area composed of rock bed units, landforms, soils and water resource.
-The rock bed units: exposed in the study area belong to Paleogene and Neogene Periods (Dammam, Euphrates, Nfayil, Injana and Dibdiba Formations) and Quaternary sediments (Hassan, 2007;and Sissakian and Mohammed 2007) (Sissakian et al., 2015).Some mesas occurred within Nfayil Formation covered by hard limestone.Some hills developed beside the plateau, range from few to 20 m comprises sandstone, mudstone and claystone.Other hills occurred far away from plateau belong to Nfayil Formation range from few to 10 m consisting of marl and limestone (Sissakian et al., 2015).Cliffs, of steep slope 3. Solution origin: include lake, salt marsh and piping caves.Razzaza Lake bottom consists of carbonate rock bed units.Involved rock bed units which belong to Nfayil and Euphtates Formations were fractured by three group of lineaments (Al-Kubaisi et al., 2014).low land in study area may be filled by spring salty water to form salt marshes which locally used to raising Buffaloes and fishing.Rock shelters and caves (Fig. 5) of different sizes developed by solution effect on claystone (Hassan and Al-Khateeb, 2005) or by Karstification on marly limestone (Sissakian et al., 2015) within Injana Formation at the upper part of plateau.The water level in the general  and 7).This is correlated mainly to the high content of sulphur compounds in the drilled water.This snail is known to present in rich sulphur content water (Mohammad, 2014a).Involved sediments composed of poorly cemented and poorly sorted sediments which contain carbonate and chert gravels (Hamza, 2007).Flood plain sediments are developing on two sides of large ephemeral stream and composed of sand, mud and clay.Its thickness range from 1 meter to some meters (Hamza, 2007).Many locations of this unit were heavily utilized to get sand for industrial and construction purposes, accompanied with use of huge quantities of underground water for washing sand.The water was maintained in a large depression beyond each site and collected through deep artesian wells of 4" to 6" pipes drilled in the seventies of the past century and some of them are still pouring water till now.

6.
Manyephemeral stream such as Al-Ubaidh (Fig. 8), Ghadaf, Abu Mindhar, Tabbal, Saffawiyat and others, controlled by topography, are drain from the west toward depression of Razzaza Lake (Sissakian, 2007).This structural unit offered suitable places for breeding and nest building of the Ruddy Sheldduck Tadorna ferruginea which takes place during summer mostly in May and June.This duck disappeared from the area with the road paving at the middle of seventies of the past century and reach more tourists to visit the Al-Ukhaidher fort and the nearby Ain Al-Tamur town.This duck is no more exists in the area by now.Also, this unit contains Green toad Bufo viridis, the Eurasian frog Pelophylax ridibundus and the Himri fish Carassobarbus luteus.Their existence is related directly to the presence of good quantities of fresh water transferred by Al-Ubaidh valley and its branches especially during the rainy season, which allows to these animals to migrate locally from southern edge of the lake southward for more pure fresh water.These small bodies of freshwater contribute to the unusual existence and maintaining of a small population of the freshwater lymnaeid snail Radix auricularia in the heart of the desert.Its presence may be by bringing the eggs of the snail by aquatic birds through attaching these eggs with their legs or feathers.Al-Zarga, Ain Seeb and a complicated network irrigation channels through the orchards and farms in addition to many small spring and tens of date palm trees around composes one of many scattered small oases around the town (Mohammad, 2014b).
-Drilled wells: After 2003, many farmers digged deep wells to use it for drinking, irrigation and other daily uses.Currently, water flows continuously from involved wells to the farms and gardens.The access water already goes to Razzaza Lake basin.
-Ephemeral streams: many ephemeral streams flow, during rainy seasons from highland deserts to the east direction toward Razzaza Lake such as: Wadi Al-Ubaidh, Ghadaf, Tabbal and others.
-Razaza Lake: It is the second largest water basin in Iraq and the largest basin in studied area.It was founded in 1969 to prevent floods of Euphrates River which might be take place in middle and south Iraq.Formerly the surface area of the lake reach to Vol.50, No.1, 2017 1621 Km 2 , water depth reaches to 40 m and the conserved water, during 1995, about 25750 billion m 3 .But in 2013, the surface area of the lake was decreased to 271 Km, water depth range between 5 -10 m and the conserved water about 4300 billion m 3 (Othman et al., 2013).
-Types of soil: The major type of the soil is the sandy soil on the Plateau and the south part of Razaza Lake peach.Whilemuddy and clayey soil is the major type at Shithatha and surrounding areas.
a. Plateau: The upper surface of plateau is covered by Dibdiba Formation (Hassan, 2007) or by alluvial fan (Sissakian et al., 2015)  d.Razaza Lake: It is the largest basin in the study area (Fig. 13).The shortage of water resources caused decreasing of depth to 5 -10 m, surface area to 271 Km 2 and the water conservation to 4300 billion cubic meters (Othman et al., 2013).In the seventies and eighties decades of the last century the water was nearly fresh to Huwaizah marsh.It is also observed in Dalmaj marsh (personal data) and Razzaza lake (Mohammad et al., 2010;Mohammad and Ali, 2013;and Mohammad, 2014b

LEGENDFig
Fig. 1: Location and Geology map of studied area (Al-Dabbas et al., 2015) are developed on the west part of the plateau within Injana Formation.Many gentle slope and flat wadis, successive with cliffs, are dissected the plateau and inclined toward Razzaza Lake.Shallow fractures (caves) in rocks in Tar caves were recorded to be used by the eagle owl Bubo bubo for nesting while the deep ones were used by two species of bats; the Naked-rumped Tomb Bat Taphozous nudiventris magnus and the Kuhl's Pipestrelle Pipestrellus kuhlii for hiding during daytime.The large holes inside Tar caves unit (Figs. 2 and 3) are wide and large enough to contain several hundreds of these bats and large quantity of bat feces was accumulated at the base.2. Denudational origin: include Desert pavement, mushroom rocks.Desert Pavement is covered by sub-rounded to sub-angular pebbles.Length of pebble reaches to 5cm, which may be derived from Dibdibba Formation and/or Karbala plateau.Mushroom rocks developed on the top west side of plateau within Injana Formation (Fig. 4).

7.
Evaporational origin: include two types, secondary gypsum and sabkha.Secondary gypsum exposed on the upper part of plateau cliffs within sandstone of Injana Formation which may be derived from Nfayil Formation (Al-Zubaidi and Jan, 2016).Vol.50, No.1, 2017Sabkhas were developed in the distal part of alluvial fan sediments which consists mainly of fine materials.Involved sediments found near Razzaza Lake (Fig.9) and west of Shithatha town.8.Eeolian origin:Aeolian landforms resulted in the studied area are trapped dunes, shadow dunes, barchan dune and sand sheets.Trapped dunes form when the sand grains deposited within Tamarix tree or deposited behind the tree to form shadow dunes which found on plateau, wadi and Beach of Razzaza Lake.Barchan dune found on the beach close to lower part of wadis particularly near Qatarat Al-Emam Ali (Fig.10).Sand sheet found in the areas without vegetation on the beach, wadis and on the plateau.

Fig. 11 :
Fig. 11: water transported from Karbala drainage canal to the Razzaza Lake Fig. 12: Enterance of the den of spiny-tailed lizard in the Plateau Fig. 13: Razzaza Lake It is of interest to mention here is the crustacean Sphaeroma a. annandalei.It seems that it is widely distributed throughout the southern marshy areaswith noticeable tolerance to wide range in salt content of water.Ali et al. (2007) reported it from Suq Shuyukh and Hammar marshes while Al-Zubaidi et al. (2017) reported it from

Fig. 14 :
Fig. 14: marshes to the east of Razzaza Lake

more Vol.50, No.1, 2017 than
105 Km and its high up to 21 m . Dammam Formation (Late Eocene), upper part exposed in the area consists of limestone and marl in addition to few lenses of chert.Euphrates Formation (Early Miocene), about 40 -57 m thick, consist of fossiliferous limestone.Nfayil Formation (Middle Miocene), about 27 m