Discovery of marine late Cretaceous carbonates and evaporites in the Kufra Basin (Libya) redefines the southern limit ofthe late Cretaceous transgression

A major marine transgression occurred in North Africa during the Late Cretaceous, 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 of the Kufra Basin in southeast Libya. This succession includes carbonates that contain benthic and rare planktic foraminifera, indicating a marine facies and a Late Cretaceous Campaniar-Maastrichtian age. A Maastrichtian age is also suggested by a 87Sr/86Sr ratio measured from an echinoid test. The carbonates represent the southernmost known occurrence of marine Upper Cretaceous strata in southeast Libya. Previously, the southernmost description of marine Upper Cretaceous strata came from the southeastern Sirte Basin. The find pushes southwards the maximum extent of the Late Cretaceous transgression in palaeogeographic reconstructions of the region by at least one hundred kilometres.