Major,
long-lived ENE-WSW lineaments in North Africa and their
influence on Proterozoic and Palaeozoic
Petroleum systems
Raddadi, M. C.1, P.
Markwick2, S. Campbell2 (1) GETECH Group, Leeds, United
Kingdom (2) GETECH Group,
North Africa is dissected by numerous
differently orientated major tectonic lineaments. Some of these are very old
affecting the basement and have been reactivated many times during successive orogenic phases. Such lineaments play an important role in
controlling the sedimentation in this area as well as the regional and local paleogeography.
The Proterozoic
and Palaeozoic tectonic history of North Africa is dominated by long
periods of predominantly gentle basin subsidence alternating with short periods
of gentle folding and inversion. However, this was interrupted by an important
phase of folding, uplift and erosion during the Pan-African orogenic
event. Some local rift basins developed episodically, located mainly along the
northern African-Arabian plate margin and near the West African Craton / Pan-African Belt Suture. These basins were limited
by arches or spurs, mainly along N-S to NE-SW trends.
In a structural, geophysical and sedimentological study of the Algerian Saharan Platform and
a previous study in Mauritania, Raddadi
(unpublished), we demonstrated the importance of the ~N070 lineaments in
controlling the occurrence and distribution of source rocks and reservoirs in
this area. These lineaments correspond to Archaean
and Palaeo-Proterozoic trends, reactivated during Meso- to Neo-Proterozoic, Palaeozoic and probably Mesozoic times. As such, these play
a very important role in the Proterozoic petroleum
system of onshore Mauritania (northern margin of Taoudenni Basin) and the Palaeozoic petroleum system in the North African Saharan
Platform (Algeria, Libya).