US-Egypt Cooperative Research: The Cenomanian-Turonian Paleoecology of Egypt

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0217921KellerDescription:This award is for support of a joint research project by Dr. Gerta Keller, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, Dr. Ahmed Kassab, Geology Department at Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt and Dr. Abdel Aziz Tantawy, Geology Department at South Valley University, Aswan, Egypt. They plan to study the Cenomanian-Turonian (C-T) anoxic event across different bathymetric settings along the Gulf of Suez and Sinai in Egypt. The investigators plan to investigate these different bathymetric settings in Egypt and the Sinai based on a high-resolution study of the organic carbon-rich facies in a series of sections along the Gulf of Suez and in the Sinai. The study will be based on an integrated multidisciplinary approach that includes sedimentology, mineralogy, geochemistry, stable carbon and oxygen isotopes and microfossil and macrofossil biostratigraphies. The results are expected to yield critical information on the nature of organic carbon accumulation in variable settings, the biotic response of marine plankton to this crisis, and the climatic and sea level history of the region. The investigators expect to develop high-resolution biostratigraphic records that permit evaluation of the timing of the anoxic event and comparison and correlation with black shale deposition elsewhere in the Tethys.Scope:The C-T transition marks a major greenhouse warming accompanied by global ocean anoxia that was detrimental to marine benthic and planktic organisms. The resulting organic-rich facies are widespread globally and occur in a wide range of bathymetric settings with the thickest deposits with greatest source rock potential generally occur in outer-shelf environments of the low latitude Atlantic and Mediterranean Tethys. The eastern Tethys, and Egypt in particular, provides an ideal area for the study of the C-T anoxic event across different bathymetric settings from shallow shelf to deep basins, as observed in a series of dysoxic basins along the Gulf of Suez and Sinai in Egypt. This project will bring together an international team of experts in sedimentology, mineralogy, stratigraphy, stable isotopes, geochemistry and biology. At the same time the project will involve U.S. and Egyptian graduate and undergraduate students in the field and laboratory investigations and thereby introduce them to various Earth Science disciplines and expose them to working within a larger investigative team and in a foreign country. The project is funded by the Office of International Science and Engineering and the Division of Earth Sciences.