Late Cretaceous palynology and paleoenvironment of the Razzak-3 well, North Western Desert, Egypt
- PDF / 11,247,765 Bytes
- 23 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 33 Downloads / 186 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Late Cretaceous palynology and paleoenvironment of the Razzak-3 well, North Western Desert, Egypt Mohamed I. A. Ibrahim 1 & Sameh S. Tahoun 2 & Mohamed K. Zobaa 3 & Francisca E. Oboh-Ikuenobe 4 & Suzan E. Kholeif 5 Received: 27 February 2020 / Accepted: 9 July 2020 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020
Abstract Palynological analysis of the Bahariya and Abu Roash Formations from the Razzak-3 (RZ-3) well, North Western Desert, Egypt, has yielded rich and very-well-diversified spores, pollen and dinoflagellate cysts which allow subdividing the studied rock units into four pollen/spore (PS) zones and three dinoflagellate cyst (D) zones. Miospores are abundant in the Cenomanian, while dinoflagellates predominate the Turonian-Santonian. A barren interzone delineates the oceanic anoxic event 2 and embraces member âFâ of the Abu Roash Formation. The marine/nonmarine palynomorph ratio in the studied samples indicate that the Bahariya Formation was deposited in a nearshore paleoenvironment affected by continental sources with an arid to semiarid hinterland having local or seasonal humid conditions. Deposition of the Abu Roash Formation took place in the transitional zone between the inner and outer shelf. Dinoflagellate cysts in this study are of the Tethyan Realm. Keywords Palynostratigraphy . Paleoenvironment . Bahariya . Abu Roash . Cretaceous . Egypt
Introduction The North Western Desert of Egypt contains several oil and gas fields such as the Abu Gharadig, Alamein, Yeidma, Responsible Editor: Beatriz Badenas Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-020-05705-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Mohamed I. A. Ibrahim [email protected] * Sameh S. Tahoun
1
Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Alexandria University, Moharam Bay, Alexandria 21511, Egypt
2
Department of Geology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt
3
Department of Geoscience, The University of Texas Permian Basin, Texas, USA
4
Department of Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla, MO 65409, USA
5
National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries (NIOF), Alexandria, Egypt
Salam, Mubarka, Razzak and Meleiha. The Razzak oil field was discovered during the early 1970s, and is located 270 km NW of Cairo and 60 km south of the Mediterranean Sea. This field preserves hydrocarbon discoveries in the highly faulted Mesozoic sedimentary basin of the Western Desert, where complex fault systems and multiple hydrocarbon-water contacts are common. Oil was discovered in seven separate reservoirs ranging from the Jurassic to the Upper Cenomanian. The Burg El Arab Formation includes the marine Alamein Dolomite Member (Aptian), which is the regional seismic mapping horizon in the Rabat-Razzak Basin. The ~ 67-m (~ 200 ft) thick Alamein Dolomite is the main oil pay in the Razzak, Alamein and Yidma oil fields (Ezzat and Dia El Din 1974). The Bahariya Form
Data Loading...