Maastrichtian-Paleocene Ostracoda from Teneida section, Dakhla Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt: Systematics, biostratigraphy, paleobathymetry and paleobiogeography
Introduction
The Dakhla Oasis is the largest depression in the Western Desert of Egypt. It lies ~300 km to the west of the Nile Valley. The Upper Cretaceous-Lower Paleogene rocks in this area are characterized by more or less continuous exposures, large thicknesses, prolonged ages with depositional pauses as well as lateral and vertical facies oscillations between the northern Nile Valley and the southern Garra El-Arbain facies (Issawi, 1972), reflecting oscillating paleoenvironments. At Teneida, on the north eastern escarpment of the Dakhla Oasis (Fig. 1), the stratigraphic section exposes Maastrichtian-Paleocene rocks in which sediments of the Nile Valley and Garra El Arbain facies are represented. The Nile Valley facies is represented by the Maastrichtian-Selandian Dakhla Formation and the Selandian-Thanetian Tarawan Formation. The Garra El-Arbain facies is represented by the Danian Kurkur Formation, which intercalates the upper part of the Dakhla Formation (Fig. 2). The Dakhla Oasis area was the subject of many paleontological studies of which none was concerned with ostracods; the only available ostracod studies are represented by unpublished theses (e.g. El-Sweify, 1984). However, a large number of ostracod papers published on the Upper Cretaceous-Lower Paleogene rocks in other areas of Egypt is already available and presents valuable information about most of the ostracod taxa recorded in the present study (e.g. Bassiouni et al., 1977; Boukhary et al., 1982a; 2013; Bassiouni and Luger, 1990; Ismail, 1992; 1996; Elewa and Ishizaki, 1994; Morsi, 1999; 2000; Shahin, 2000; 2005; Bassiouni and Morsi, 2000; Shahin and El Nady, 2001; Abd-Elshafy et al., 2002; 2007; Speijer and Morsi, 2002; Elewa, 2002; Morsi and Speijer, 2003; Ismail and Ied, 2004; 2005; Elewa and Morsi, 2004; Morsi et al., 2008; Morsi and Scheibner, 2009; Youssef et al., 2017). Of equal importance are also the publications on the other South Tethyan areas in the North Africa and the Middle East (e.g. Esker, 1968; Bassiouni, 1969a; 1969b; 1970; Donze et al., 1982; Damotte and Fleury, 1987; El-Waer, 1992; Whatley and Arias, 1993; Keen et al., 1994; Honigstein and Rosenfeld, 1995; Van Itterbeeck et al., 2007a; 2007b; Morsi et al., 2011), and the paleobiogeographically related West African basins (e.g. Reyment and Reyment, 1959; 1980; Reyment, 1960; 1963; 1981; Apostolescu, 1961; Carbonnel and Johnson, 1989; Carbonnel, 1990; Carbonnel and Monciardini, 1995; Sarr, 1998; 2012; 2015; Colin et al., 1998). In the present paper, we study the ostracods recovered from the Maastrichtian-Paleocene succession exposed in Teneida section. The study includes the taxonomic description as well as biostratigraphic, paleoecologic and paleobiogeographic evaluation of the recorded ostracod fauna.
Section snippets
Lithostratigraphy
The Tenaida section is located on the north eastern escarpment of the Dakhla Oasis at latitude 25° 32′ N and longitude 29° 23′ E (Fig. 1). From base to top, it is stratigaphically subdivided into three rock units, the Dakhla, Kurkur and Tarawan Formations (Fig. 2).
Material and methods
The studied ostracod material is extracted from 247 samples collected from the Maastrichtian-Paleocene succession exposed in Teneida section which represents the Maastrichtian-Paleocene successions in the Dakhla Oasis area (Fig. 2). For each sample, about 75 g of dried rock was crushed, impregnated with hydrogen peroxide (15%) and sodium bicarbonate and washed after several days over a 0.063 mm sieve. The residue was dried, then sieved and all ostracods in the residue were picked out, then
Systematic paleontology
The studied ostracod fauna is taxonomically classified into 36 species assigned to 25 genera and 9 families. The classification of Horne (2005), is adopted in the present study. The generic assignment is based on Moore (1961); later established genera are treated as proposed by their authors.
Class OSTRACODA Latrielle, 1806
Subclass PODOCOPA Müller, 1894
Order PLATYCOPIDA Sars, 1866
Suborder PLATYCOPINA Sars, 1866
Superfamily CYTHERELLOIDEA Sars, 1866
Family CYTHERELLIDAE Sars, 1866
Genus Cytherella
Biostratigraphy
Biostratigraphic evaluation of the ostracod fauna recorded from Teneida section is based on the stratigraphic ranges deduced from previous studies in and outside Egypt (Table 1), integrated with results of biostratigraphic analysis of planktonic foraminifera carried out on the same section by Hewaidy et al. (2017) (Fig. 3). They recorded two Maastrichtian planktonic foraminiferal zones in the Dakhla Formation, the CF3 Zone from the basal part of the Mawhoob Shale Member assigning it as early
Paleobathymetery
The diversity of ostracods is an important indicator for determining the paleodepth in marine settings. Benthic marine ostracod depth assemblages can be categorized as inner-neritic, middle neritic, outer-neritic or bathyal-abyssal. Higher ostracod diversities are more common in the neritic depths, compared with the deeper bathyal or abyssal depths. Paleobathymetric assignment of the present Maastrichtian - Paleocene ostracod fauna from Teneida section is based on comparison of the recorded
Paleobiogeography
As a part of the South Tethyan bioprovence, several previous studies have documented a large number of Maastrichtian-Paleocene ostracod taxa in common between Egypt and other North African and Middle East regions by virtue of the facilitated east-west migration along the southern shores of the Tethys (Donze et al., 1982; Damotte and Fleury, 1987; Babinot and Colin, 1988; Bassiouni and Luger, 1990, Keen et al., 1994; Bassiouni and Morsi, 2000; Speijer and Morsi, 2002; Morsi and Speijer, 2003;
Conclusions
The studied Maastrichtian-Paleocene succession in Teneida section is differentiated into two facies types: the Nile Valley Facies is represented by the Dakhla Formation of Maastrichtian-Selandian age at the base and the Selandian-Thanetian Tarawan Formation at the top; the Garra El-Arbain Facies is represented by the Danian Kurkur Formation, which is present as a tongue within the upper part of the Dakhla Formation. Investigation of 247 samples collected from the section revealed thirty six
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declared that they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
We thank Dr. E. Ied (Zagazig University) and Dr. Sherif Farouk (Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute) for their reviews and comments. Special thank are due to Dr. Delvaux (Editor of Journal of African Earth Sciences) for his editorial handling of the paper.
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