Benthic foraminiferal communities of the Eocene platform, north Eastern Desert, Egypt

Eocene planktonic foraminifera from the north Eastern Desert, Egypt: Biostratigraphic, paleoenvironmental and sequence stratigraphy implications

“…Acarinina bullbrooki (Bolli, 1957) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina collactea (Finlay, 1939) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina libyaensis (El Khoudary, 1977) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina matthewsae Blow, 1979 x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina medizzai (Toumarkine and Bolli, 1975) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina pentacamerata (Subbotina, 1947) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina primitiva (Finlay, 1947) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina rohri (Bronnimann and Bermudez, 1953) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina spinuloinflata (Bandy, 1949) x ‫ـــ‬ Acarinina topilensis (Cushman, 1925) x ‫ـــ‬ acterized by an absence of planktonic species. It is equivalent to the benthic foraminiferal Pyrgo elongata zone recorded by Abd El-Gaied et al (2019) from the studied section. The identified benthic species in this interval includes miliolid, textularid, and nummulitid foraminifera.…”

“…recognized that the Middle/Upper Eocene (Bartonian / Priabonian) boundary traced at the top of the Turborotalia pseudoampliapertura zone. However, Aly et al (2011) andAbd El-Gaied et al (2019) placed this boundary between the benthic foramineferal Palmula ansaryi zone and the Bulimina jacksonensis zone. Some authors (Blow, 1979;Toumarkine and Luterbacher, 1985;Shahin, 1992;Berggren et al, 1995;Haggag and Bolli, 1996;Mukhopadhyay, 2003 and others) (Strougo, 1992(Strougo, , 2008.…”

“…According to the standard chronostratigraphic scale, the Bartonian/ Priabonian boundary is located either at the P14/ P15 zonal boundary or at the lower part of zone P15 (Toumarkine and Luterbacher, 1985;Berggren et al, 1995). In Egypt and the Middle East, Anan (1994Anan ( , 2011, Hussein (1998), Helal (2002), Aly et al (2011), andAbd El-Gaied et al (2019) placed the Bartonian/Priabonian boundary at the last appearance of the benthic foraminiferal species palmula ansaryi. In the present study, the boundary between the Middle Eocene (Bartonian) and Upper Eocene (Priabonian) was located within the Globigerinatheka semiinvoluta zone (according to the works of Berggren and Pearson (2005), Wade et al, (2011), andKaroui-Yaakoubi (2017).…”

“…The Eocene Epoch witnessed the development of a carbonate platform covering a huge area of Egypt (Said, 1962;Saber and Salama, 2017;Abd El-Gaied et al, 2019). The foraminiferal contents of the Eocene platform were the target for many previous studies in the Nile Valley and the north Eastern Desert (Bassiouni et al, 1974(Bassiouni et al, , 1975Kenawy et al, 1977;Haggag, 1986Haggag, , 1989Haggag and Anan, 1987;Haggag and Luterbacher, 1991;Bolli, 1995, 1996;Hussein, 1994;Obaidalla and El-Ayyat, 2001;El-Dawy and Dakrory, 2005;Strougo et al, 2013;El Ayyat and Obaidalla, 2016;Abdel-Fattah, 2018).…”

“…The study area has not been subjected to sufficient studies because of the difficulty in reaching it, but with new asphaltic roads, researchers can easily access the Eocene successions along Beni Suef -El Zaafarana. Recently, Abd El-Gaied et al (2019) studied in detail the benthic foraminiferal assemblages and paleoenvironment of the Middle-Late Eocene succession in this area. However, the micropaleontological studies of the Eocene sequence by means of planktonic foraminifera in the study area in the north Eastern Desert were not the subject of sufficient previous works.…”