A Preliminary Documentation of the Coral Reefs from Libya

Abstract

Corals studies in Libya are very limited, although they play an important role in the oil exploration as they form excellent reservoirs of coral reef buildups at some oil fields of Sirt Basin (e.g. Intisar “Idris” and Sahabi Fields). Both fields are produced from Paleocene coral reefs. Meanwhile, in Cyrenaica, corals are of less importance as they are not reported in subsurface tertiary rocks, which probably in the environmental settings of these sediments out of the core of reef as occurred in the surface. Meanwhile, corals are reported from older (Jurassic) subsurface successions as in Concession NC-152, but the cementation diagenesis leads to blocking and destroying the porosity. This study presents the first surface documentation work of eight scleractinian coral species from the exposed sediments in northern Libya, where sixtaxa is reported from Al Jabal al Akhdar region, these include a) an association of huge colonies of Caulastrea sp. and Stylophora sp., from the Middle Eocene Darnah Formation at West Darnah road cut section. Theco-existence of the fastCaulastrea sp. with the slow Stylophora sp. is due to the competition strategy; b) Antiguastrea sp. which is reported from the Oligocene Algal Limestone of Al Bayda Formation at Daryanah-Abyar Roadcut section; c) Cyphastrea sp. andAleveopora sp. from Oligo-Miocene Al Faidiyah Formation at Al Fatayah cement quarry and d) Tarbellastraea sp. From Middle Miocene Benghazi Formation at Benghazi Cement Quarry. In addition, two species Astraeaopora sp. and Actinacis paroraiare reported from the Upper Miocene sediments of formation “M” in As Sahabi area.