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Quaternary sediments from the coastal plain of northwestern Egypt (from Alexandria to El Omayid)

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 September 1995

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Abstract

The coastal area on the eastern side of the Arabs’ Gulf, west of Alexandria, forms a small part of the Quaternary coastal plain of northwestern Egypt. The present coast is bordered by an colitic and biogenic sandy beach-dune ridge. Landward are a series of parallel cemented Pleistocene carbonate sand ridges capped by caliche and separated by depressions filled with lagoonal-sabkha deposits.

The calcareous sediments of the coastal beach ridge are composed of aragonite, high- magnesium calcite, and low-magnesium calcite in decreasing order of abundance. These deposits have undergone only minor diagenetic changes, whereas, the rocks of the landward ridges have suffered various textural-, mineralogical-, and geochemical alterations. These alterations are significantly greater in the east due to the seepage of fresh water from the Nile delta. Such diagenetic effects are described and quantitatively estimated.

Development of caliche on the ridges led to corrosion of terrigenous quartz and feldspars, and precipitation of attapulgite.

The inter-ridge lagoonal sabkha depressions are filled with calcareous deposits, gypseous deposits and loess. Authigenic attapulgite is found also in these sediments and is associated with gypsum and calcite.

A complex history of sedimentation controlled by fluctuation in sea level and changing climatic conditions is proposed. Some modifications of earlier views concerning the relationship of some of the beach-dune ridges to particular stands of sea level are suggested.

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Change history

  • 01 September 1995

    On page 40, v. 10, no. 1, the first line of left column is missing. It shouldread: “dissolution even high-magnesium calcite has been found to“

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  1. Gulf of Suez Petroleum Co., Palestine Street-Fourth Sector, New Maadi, P. O. Box 2400, Cairo, Egypt

    Al Moataz Bellah Hamdi Hassouba

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Hassouba, A.M.B.H. Quaternary sediments from the coastal plain of northwestern Egypt (from Alexandria to El Omayid). Carbonates Evaporites 10, 8–44 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03175238

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