ji UPPER CRETACEOUS-LOWER TERTIARY FORAMINIFERA 



which was described by Le Roy from the Maqfi section and with which they correlated 

 this part of their succession, is of Lower Eocene age (see p. 37). Again, their 

 description of the underlying zone as characterized by Aturia cf. praeziczac is very 

 misleading, as the latter species characterizes, in the Luxor section, an horizon 

 equivalent to the " Eponides lotas fauna " of the Maqfi section. Moreover, in spite 

 of a marked break in the succession, and the absence of the Lower and Middle 

 Paleocene in the Maqfi section, Eponides lotus was found to appear at a vertical 

 distance of about 120 metres from the underlying Maestrichtian surface, while they 

 recorded this species in a lithologically identical succession, at a vertical distance of 

 only 70m. from the top of their Maestrichtian, and advocated the conformity of the 

 succession throughout. However, until the succession is more carefully examined, 

 nothing much can be added, although the Foraminifera of two samples from the 

 Maestrichtian part of the succession (described by Ansary & Fakhr 1958), included 

 some rare planktonic forms. Nevertheless, a probable stratigraphical break between 

 the Maestrichtian and the overlying Paleocene is indicated by the marked reduction 

 in the thickness of the strata assigned to the latter series. 



Said (i960) recorded fourteen species of planktonic Foraminifera from what he 

 described as Esna shale and the overlying Thebes formation of the Gebel Gurnah 

 section, at Thebes (on the western bank of the Nile, facing Luxor). He concluded 

 that the " Esna shale " is Landenian in age while the Thebes limestone is Ypresian. 

 Analysis of his described planktonic Foraminifera, and comparison with the present 

 study shows that both the shales and the limestones are of Lower Eocene age. It 

 also indicates that the shaly part of the succession is equivalent to the " Thebes 

 calcareous shale member " of the Gebel Owaina section, which is here equated with 

 the Globorotalia wilcoxensis Zone of earliest Eocene age. This throws doubt on the 

 validity of the identification of forms recorded by Said, e.g. G. velascoensis (Cushman), 

 G. imitata (Subbotina), G. conicotruncata (Subbotina) and Globigerina trilocidinoides 

 Plummer, which are restricted to the Paleocene. However, the possibility that the 

 basal 1-5 metres of the succession may be of uppermost Paleocene age is not 

 excluded. Indeed comparison of his figures and descriptions with the original 

 descriptions and figures of the above-mentioned species, and with the specimens 

 described in the present study shows that his forms need to be renamed and re- 

 described in more detail. 



Hermina, Ghobrial & Issawi (1961) described the Upper Cretaceous-Lower 

 Tertiary succession of the Dakhla Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt, and in disagreement 

 with Zittel (1883) and Beadnell (1901), they recorded a marked break between the 

 Maestrichtian and the overlying Danian in most of their measured sections. How- 

 ever, they noticed that the gap represented by this break is gradually minimized 

 westwards where they stated that "... a monotonous shale section follows above 

 the uppermost zone of the Upper Maestrichtian with possible conformable relation- 

 ship ". 



These authors considered the unfossiliferous Nubia formation to be of uppermost 

 Campanian or Lower Maestrichtian age (being conformably overlain by rocks they 



