Basement Tectonic Map of Egypt

By

Wafik M. Meshref¹

(1) Ocean Energy Egypt Ltd, Cairo, Egypt

 The basement tectonic map of Egypt reflects the chronological sequence of tectonic events through geologic time from Precambrian to Recent. Aeromagnetic data flown over Egypt, gravity data and geologic data from all wells drilled in the Northern Egypt were used in this study.

The main feature of this map is its segmentation into 3 main provinces. These provinces; from south to north; are:

1. The African Craton which is the northern limit of the outcropping basement in Southern Egypt.

2. The Stable Shelf area lies between the African craton and the Cretaceous shoreline, which separates the stable shelf area from the unstable shelf area to the north. The stable shelf area is mainly affected by the northerly trending tectonic lineament (Erythrean) of Precambrian age. The basins within the stable shelf area has no commercial oil and gas discoveries yet

3- The Unstable Shelf area is mainly controlled by the Mesozoic Syrian Arc wrench tectonics of ENE trend, associated with the closing of the Tethys Sea. Most oil and gas fields discovered in north Western Desert of Egypt lies within the different basins of the unstable shelf area.

The G.O.S, Red Sea rift and the northern part of the Nile basin were mainly affected by Tertiary rift tectonics, resulting from the northern horizontal compression that affected the Egyptian territory; due to the closing of the Tethys Sea by Late Eocene-Early Tertiary time.

A series of isopach maps of major formations (Karamat 1995) in north Western Desert indicates that the initiation of the old delta started in Late Eocene-Early Oligocene time as evidenced by the Daba isopach map within the stable shelf area. The Abu-Gharadig basin could be looked upon as the delta cone of the old delta. However, its origin is much older than that