General Geology of the El-Kilh Area

Abstract

The El-Kilh area lies on the west bank of the Nile about 15 km north of Idfu. The Nile valley in this area is narrow and limited to the west by a dissected flat pediplain surface that extends westward as far as the footslopes of the limestone plateau. The oldest exposed rocks in the area belong to the Nubia formation. The upper beds of this formation, known as the variegated shale member, make up the whole thickness of the isolated mesas and buttes and the lower part of the massive Gebel Ayat. To the south of Kilh, the lower member of the nubia formation outcrops. The Duwi Phosphate Formation overlies, with seeming conformity, the variegated shale member. The Dakhia is made of gray-to-green shales, and is soft, compact in places, highly gypseous, and saliferous. The gypsum and salts are found filling cracks and fissures either diagonal or parallel to the bedding planes, or may be present between the shale folios. Quaternary deposits cover the low-lying ground in the hummocky area near the Nile and the surface of the western pediplain. Thick Nile silt deposits fill what is supposed to be old Nile branches in the area north and south of Kom Meir. The silt in the area of El-Kilh is highly saliferous, probably owing to the washing of salts from both the Dakhia and variegated shales and their redeposition in the nearby area within the Nile silt.