An Early Depositional History and Stratigraphic Architecture from the Eastern Margin of the Suez Rift, Egypt

By

Ahmed N. El-Barkooky¹, Mohammed D. Darwish¹, Abdel-Moneim El-Araby¹, Reinhard Gaupp²

(1) Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt (2) Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany

 The present work is a follow-up of an earlier research phase during 1997-98 in Nukhul- Markha area: a tilted, fault-bounded block with a hanging-wall syncline on the eastern margin of the Suez Rift. The early syn-rift Oligo-Miocene sequences are exceptionally exposed in three-dimensional outcrops portraying facies architecture of a NW-trending, depocentre on a gradually rotated hanging-wall. Transverse to the depocentre axis, southwestwards stratal convergence and onlapping record the degree of rotation. The pre-rift Middle Eocene limestone is truncated by the initial rift unconformity and overlain by the earliest syn-rift alluvial and fluvio-lacustrine sediments with volcaniclastics and frequent stacked palaeosols and interfluves. These predominantly red beds, known as Tayiba Formation, belong to the Late Oligocene and show angular unconformable relation to the overlying Aquitanian Nukhul Formation. The latter had been deposited in a variety of restricted marginal marine environments with strong tidal influence being maximized in narrow tectonic corridors and embayments. The study area offers an excellent surface analogue for modeling the reservoir sand distribution and geometry within a similar tectonic framework in the subsurface.