GPSW-7 WELL, Sample 37 (Cretaceous 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: Afropollis kahramarensis pollen zone, G Member (Abu Roash Formation), Early/Lower 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 140415: authorized by Carlos Jaramillo, entered by Gabriela Doria on 09.03.2013

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
unclassified
  -
Aptodinium maculatum
Dinophyceae
 Gonyaulacales - Gonyaulacaceae
Florentinia berran
Florentinia berran Below 1982
 Gonyaulacales -
Xiphophoridium alatum
Xiphophoridium alatum Sarjeant 1966
 Gonyaulacales - Goniodomaceae
Dinopterygium cladoides
Dinopterygium cladoides Deflandre 1935
 Gonyaulacales - Areoligeraceae
Cyclonephelium vannophorum
 Gonyaulacales - Ceratiaceae
Xenascus ceratioides
Xenascus ceratioides Lentin and Williams 1973
Angiospermae
  -
Afropollis jardunus, Afropollis kahramanensis
Afropollis kahramanensis Ibrahim and Schrank 1995