Paleozoic lithofacies in southwestern Sinai and their depositional environments

Conference · Tue Mar 01 04:00:00 EST 1983 · Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol., Bull.; (United States)

OSTI ID:6374980

Bhattacharyya, D P; Peck, N R; Mansour, S E

Major breaks in sedimentation, accompanied by well-developed paleosols, have been successfully used to subdivide the 600 m (1968 ft) of Paleozoic sandstone and shale sequence of southwestern Sinai, Egypt, into five smaller facies association units (i.e., formations). The lowest unit (the Araba Formation) is dominated by 1 to 10 m (3 to 32 ft) thick coarsening-up sequences of parallel-bedded, varicolored, fine-grained arkosic sandstone and muddy sandstone. This is the deposit of a low-energy prograding sandy coastal plain complex that grades upward into a thin, fining-up channel-overbank deposits with poorly developed paleosols. The overlying Naqus Formation scours deep into the Araba, and is characterized by lenticular, coarse to medium-grained, cross-bedded quartz sandstone with only a few clayey intervals. Cross-beds are common. The Naqus is interpreted as alluvial fanbraided stream deposits. A 15 to 20 m (40 to 66 ft) thick, conspicuous dark brown, ferruginous shale, ochre-yellow dolomitic sandstone and fossiliferous gray siltstone sequence, persistent all along the Qabeliat valley, overlies the Naqus and represents lagoonal deposits laterally equivalent to the shallow marine shale-dolomite sequence of the Um Bogma Formation farther north. Basal fluvial channel sands of the succeeding Ataqa Formation cut into the Um Bogma paleosol, and grade upward into the fossiliferous green-red marine shales and subordinate sandstones in shoaling-upward sequences. Southward in the Qabeliat valley, a parallel-bedded sequence of thick green shales and thin brown sandstones, both nonfossiliferous, intervenes in the middle of the Budra Formation and represents ephemeral lake deposits related to the fluvial system.

• Research Organization: Washington Univ., St Louis, MO
• OSTI ID: 6374980
• Report Number(s): CONF-8304200-
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Am. Assoc. Pet. Geol., Bull.; (United States) Journal Volume: 67:3
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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AFRICA
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
DISTRIBUTION
EGYPTIAN ARAB REPUBLIC
GEOLOGIC AGES
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
GEOLOGY
LITHOLOGY
PALEOZOIC ERA
RESERVOIR ROCK
SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION
STRATIGRAPHY