GPSW-7 WELL, Sample 29 (Cretaceous to of Egypt)

Where: north Western Desert, Egypt (30.0° N, 28.0° E: paleocoordinates 9.8° N, 23.1° E)

• coordinate estimated from map

When: Classopollis brasiliensis pollen zone, G Member (Abu Roash Formation), Middle Cenomanian to Middle Cenomanian (99.6 - 93.5 Ma)

Environment/lithology: shallow subtidal; lithified, gray, calcareous mudstone and lithified, gray, calcareous shale

• The Bahariya Formation is conformably overlain by the Abu Roash G Member (middle/late Cenomanian) which does not witness any marked palynofloral or palynofacies changes from the underlying Bahariya Formation, except in its lower part, which contains high amounts of dinocysts suggesting a marine influence. The deposition of the Abu Roash G Member took place in a shallow marine setting (Barakat et al., 1980), based on microfacies analysis of the Cretaceous deposits in the north Western Desert. This finding was also supported by ostracodes and foraminifera identified from the same interval in the GPTSW-7 well (GPC, 1994). The Abu Roash G Member is located within the field V of the AOM–Phytoclast–Palynomorph ternary plot of Tyson (1993), corresponding to mud-dominated oxic shelf (Fig. 5A) and within the very high terrestrial/fresh-water influx field (Fig. 5B) of Roncaglia and Kuijpers (2006) ternary plot.

Size class: microfossils

Preservation: soft parts, original sporopollenin

Collection methods: core, chemical

Primary reference: S. El Beialy, H. S. El Atfy, M. S. Zavada, E. M. El Khoriby, and R. H. Abu-Zied. 2010. Palynological, palynofacies, paleoenvironmental and organic geochemical studies on the Upper Cretaceous succession of the GPTSW-7 well, North Western Desert, Egypt. Marine and Petroleum Geology 27:370-385 [C. Jaramillo/G. Doria/G. Doria]more details

Purpose of describing collection: biostratigraphic analysis

PaleoDB collection 140407: authorized by Carlos Jaramillo, entered by Gabriela Doria on 09.03.2013

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Equisetopsida
 Pinidae - Pinidae
Dinophyceae
 Peridiniales - Peridiniaceae
 Gonyaulacales -
Xiphophoridium alatum Sarjeant 1966