Discovery of marine Late Cretaceous carbonates and evaporites in the KufraBasin (Libya) redefines the southern limit of the Late Cretaceous transgression

A major marine transgression occurred in North Africa during the Late Creta ceous, depositing marine strata in some regions which had been dominated by terrestrial deposition or erosion since Permian times. An evaporite-shale- dolomite succession has been discovered at outcrop at the northern margin o f the Kufra Basin in southeast Libya. This succession includes carbonates t hat contain benthic and rare planktic foraminifera, indicating a marine fac ies and a Late Cretaceous Campanian-Maastrichtian age. A Maastrichtian age is also suggested by a Sr-87/Sr-86 ratio measured from an echinoid test. Th e carbonates represent the southernmost known occurrence of marine Upper Cr etaceous strata in; southeast Libya. Previously, the southernmost descripti on of marine Upper Cretaceous strata came from the southeastern Sirte Basin . The find pushes southwards the maximum extent of the Late Cretaceous tran sgression in palaeogeographic reconstructions of the region by at least one hundred kilometres. (C) 2000 Academic Press.