The Phanerozoic evolution of the basins of northern Egypt and adjacent areas

Over the past thirty years, the sector of Egypt north of 29°N has been the focus of intense oil exploration activity. Oil and gas have been proven in a number of quite different marginal marine/continental geological settings, of Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Tertiary affinities. In the course of this activity, a vast amount of sub-surface information has become produced (well, potential field and seismic). A synthesis of recent studies of these data is presented, in an effort to reconstruct the Phanerozoic evolution of the many basins forming this “Unstable Shelf” (Said 1962) to Tethys and its antecedents.