A PRELIMINARY DOCUMENTATION OF THE CORAL REEFS FROM LIBYA

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 producing from Paleocene coral reefs. Meanwhile, in Cyrenaica corals are of less importance as they are not reported in subsurface Tertiary rocks, which probably to 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 led 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 six taxa reported from Al Jabal al Akhdar region, these include a) an association of huge colonies of Caulastreasp. and Stylophorasp., from the Middle Eocene Darnah Formation at West Darnah roadcut section. The co-existence of the fastCaulastrea sp. with the slow Stylophorasp. is due to the competition strategy; b) Antiguastrea? sp. is reportedfrom the Oligocene Algal Limestone of Al Bayda Formation at Daryanah – Abyar roadcut section; c) Cyphastreasp. and Aleveoporasp. from Oligo-Miocene AlFaidiyah Formation at Al Fatayah cement quarry and d) Tarbellastraeasp. from Middle Miocene Benghazi Formation at Benghazi cement Quarry. In addition to, two species Astraeaoporasp. and Actinacis paroraiare reported from the Upper Miocene sediments of formation "M" in As Sahabi area.