Integrated depositional model for the Cenomanian-Turonian organic-rich strata in North Africa

During the Late Cenomanian - Early Turonian (C/T) Oceanic Anoxic Event (OAE2), organic-rich strata was deposited in rift shelf basins and slopes across North Africa and in deep-sea basins of the adjacent oceans. Based on a review of published and unpublished information, this paper documents the distribution and organic-richness of C/T strata across the whole region within a palaeogeographic framework and systematically analyses the conditions and processes, which controlled their deposition. Previously, the C/T in North Africa has been most intensively studied in southern Morocco (Tarfaya) and Tunisia. Only little data is availabe for other parts of North Africa, namely Algeria, Libya and Egypt, because distribution of C/T Corg strata there becomes more patchy. A general decrease in peak organic richness and black shale thickness occurs from west to east, partly as a result of upwelling along the Moroccan Atlantic coast and the absence of upwelling in the eastern Mediterranean area. Furthermore, in the confined central Atlantic, the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) in many places reached down to the deep-sea floor (3-4 km), while the lower limit of the OMZ along the North African Tethys was much shallower and underlain by oxic water masses. As documented by high resolution biostratigraphic and chemostratigraphic data, C/T black shale deposition in most areas outside the upwelling zone are restricted to a strong, eustatic, latest Cenomanian transgressive phase. Triggered by this sea-level rise, the OMZ impinged onto the North African continental shelf and the margins of intrashelf basins, which mostly formed during the Early Cretaceous as halfgrabens. Important units containing C/T organic-rich strata in the region are the Atlantic Tarfaya black shales (Morocco, Western Sahara), black,shales and phtanites in the Moroccan and Algerian Atlas, the Bahloul Fm. in the SE Constantine Basin and in northern and central Tunisia, the Etel Fin. in the Sirte Basin, the Al Hilal Fm. in Cyrenaica (Libya), the Abu Roash Fm. in the Abu Gharadig and Fayium. basins (Western Desert, Egypt), the Dahyya Fm. along the NE Sinai -Palestine - Isreal coast and the Shueib Fm. in west central Jordan. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.