ABSTRACT
The purpose of the contribution is to build upon the excellent starting block provided by Said to explicitly describe the role of global tectonics in the tectonic and geologic history of Egypt. The crystalline basement of Egypt is primarily Pre-cambrian in age and is exposed extensively in the mountains of eastern Egypt and the southern part of Sinai. The Basement complex has been encountered in several wells in northern Egypt, and there is no reason to believe that it is not continuous throughout Egypt below the sedimentary cover from the exposures to the south and east. Phanerozoic rocks are dominated by relatively undeformed and unmetamorphosed sedimentary strata, with the most intense tectonic activity concentrating and, in fact, responsible for the modem continental margins of northeast Africa. The Paleozoic was a period of relative tectonic stability in the Egyptian geologic record following major late Precambrian/early Cambrian Pan African activity.
