io UPPER CRETACEOUS-LOWER TERTIARY FORAMINIFERA 



Previous work. The Esna-Idfu region has attracted the attention of geologists 

 since the earliest days of geological reconnaissance in Egypt, for the following 

 reasons : 



i. It is the only locality in the Nile Valley where both the uppermost Cretaceous 

 and the basal Tertiary rocks are very well developed and well exposed. 



2. It is the type area of the famous " Esna shale ", an important group of rock 



units which cover vast areas of the surface and subsurface of Egypt, 

 representing a relatively long period of time. 



3. It contains the economically important phosphate deposits of the " Sibaiya 



formation ". 



In spite of its geological importance, little has been published about the Esna- 

 Idfu region, and most publications deal mainly with the phosphate deposits. How- 

 ever, the stratigraphical succession at a few outcrops in the region was described in 

 general terms by Zittel (1883), Schweinfurth (1901, 1904), Beadnell (1905), Hume 

 (1911), Stromer & Weiler (1930), Cuvillier (1937a, b), Nakkady (19516) and Youssef 

 (1954), but no detailed study has ever been attempted. 



After examining the Upper Cretaceous-Lower Tertiary succession of the Western 

 Desert Oases, which he collectively related to the Danian, and divided into lower 

 Exogrya overwegi beds, middle greenish and ashen-grey paper-like shales, and upper 

 chalk with Ananchytes ovata, Zittel (1883) extended his study to the Nile Valley. 

 He pointed to the importance of the conspicuously developed oyster limestone bed 

 near Idfu which he wrongly regarded as equivalent to the " Exogyra overwegi beds " 

 of the Kharga Oasis. He also observed the great thickness of Esna shale underlying 

 the Lower Eocene " Operculina limestone " on the right bank of the Nile near Esna, 

 and added " If these paper-shales of Esneh correspond with those of Khargeh and 

 Dakhel, then the uppermost white Cretaceous limestone with Ananchytes ovata is 

 either wanting at Esneh, or does not contain any fossils and cannot thus be distin- 

 guished from the petrographically similar Eocene limestone of the Libyan stage. " 

 Apparently, Zittel wrongly correlated the shales directly underlying the Lower 

 Eocene limestone near Esna with the lower shales underlying the snow-white chalk 

 of the Oases. However, as far as is known to the writer, this is the first record of the 

 " Esna shale " in the geological literature of Egypt. 



Schweinfurth (1901, 1904) also recorded these paper shales on both banks of the 

 Nile at Esna and El-Sharawna, and considered them to be of Eocene age following 

 the general belief of his time. However, neither Zittel (1883) nor Schweinfurth 

 (1901, 1904) observed any fossils in these shales. 



Beadnell (1905), in a reconnaissance study designed to explain the mutual relation- 

 ship of the Cretaceous and Eocene systems (as understood by him), described the 

 succession in the desert margins on both sides of the Nile Valley between Aswan and 

 Esna in a series of disconnected sections. He briefly described two sections within 

 the Esna-Idfu region, the first was measured in the hills about one kilometre 

 northeast of Idfu railway station, near the village of El-Atwani, where a succession of 



