This volume arises from the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on 'North African Cretaceous rudist and coral formations and their contributions to carbonate platform development , which was held in Tunisia, on 13-18 May, 2002. It was convened by M. El Hedi Negra (Universite 7 Novembre de Carthage, now Universite de Tunis El Manar, Tunisia) and Eulalia Gili (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain). The aims of the ARW were: (1) to review and critically assess currently available data on rudist/coral formations in North African Cretaceous carbonate platforms, and their correlations, and to integrate these data with other studies around the Mediterranean; (2) to place the findings in a global context, noting both similarities with other regions of platform development as well as local differences, and (3) exploring possible reasons for these; and to help promote the creation of a vibrant peri-Mediterranean collaborative research community, embracing researchers from the entire region, to carry forward this ambitious research programme. Twenty-two presentations (oral and poster) provided both topical reviews (covering rudist evolution, and ecology, mineralogical changes, applications of strontium isotope, and graphic correlation methods, and platform typology) as well as regional syntheses (Tunisian reservoirs, Moroccan platform history, Tunisian platforms and rudist/coral facies, Algerian platforms, and Egyptian platforms). Fifteen of these presentations are expanded here as papers. The workshop was attended by 24 academic staff, 4 geologists from the oil industry, plus several observers and students.

Sea-level constitutes a critical planetary boundary for geological processes and human life. Sea-level fluctuations during major greenhouse phases are still enigmatic and strongly discussed in terms of changing climate systems. The geological record of the Cretaceous greenhouse period provides a deep-time view on greenhouse-phase Earthsystem processes that facilitates a much better understanding of the causes and consequences of global, geologically short-term, sea-level changes. In particualr, Cretaceous hothouse periods can serve as a laboratory to better understand a near-future greenhouse Earth. This volume presents high-resolution sea-level records from globally distributed sedimentary archives of the Cretaceous involving a large group of scientists from the International Geoscience Programme IGCP 609. Marine to non-marine sedimentary successions were analysed for revised age constraints, the correlation of global palaeoclimate shifts and sea-level changes, tested for climate-driven cyclicities, and correlated within a high-resolution stratigraphic framework of the Geological Timescale. For hothouse periods, the hypothesis of significant global groundwater-related sea-level change, i.e. aquifer-eustasy as a major process, is reviewed and substantiated.

An essential introduction to the age of dinosaurs in Africa. Once Africa was referred to as the ''Lost World of the dinosaur era,'' so poorly known were its ancient flora and fauna. Worse still, many priceless fossil specimens from the Sahara Desert were destroyed during the Second World War. Fortunately, in the twentieth-first century, more researchers are now working in north Africa than ever before and making fascinating discoveries such as the dinosaur Spinosaurus. Based on a decade of study, The Desert Bones brings the world of African dinosaurs fully into the light. Jamale Ijouiher skillfully draws on the latest research and knowledge about paleoecology to paint a compelling and comprehensive portrait of the mid-Cretaceous in North Africa.

This volume combines original data from the offshore and onshore Levant in various fields like sedimentology, palaeontology, geochemistry, structural geology and geophysics. This multidisciplinary approach provides an overview of the development of the Levant Basin and allows discussion of the later geological history and deformation processes of the Levant provinces

Carbonate platforms and reefs emerge, grow and die in response to intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms forced primarily by tectonics, oceanography, climate, ecology and eustasy. These mechanisms, or controls, create the physical, biological and chemical signals accountable for the myriad of carbonate depositional responses that, together, form the complex depositional systems present in the modern and ancient settings. If we are to fully comprehend these systems, it is critical to ascertain which controls ultimately govern the "life cycle" of carbonate platforms and reefs and understand how these signals are recorded and preserved. Deciphering which signals produce a dominant sedimentological response from the plethora of physical and biological information generated from superimposed regional to global-scale controls is critical to achieving this goal. With this understanding, it may be possible to extract common time- and space-independent depositional responses to specific mechanisms that may, ultimately, be used in a productive sense. Extensive research on a wide variety of carbonate platform and reefal systems in the past few decades has provided the foundation and understanding necessary to take carbonate research to a new level. With assistance from rapidly advancing computer software and an increasing use of cross-disciplinary integration, carbonate research is shifting from description and morphological analysis towards a science that is more focused on the assessment of process and genetic relationships. The aim of this special publication is to present a cross section of recent research that shows this evolution from a variety of perspectives and scales using examples distributed throughout the Phanerozoic.

Permo-Triassic Salt Provinces of Europe, North Africa and the Atlantic Margins: Tectonics and Hydrocarbon Potential deals with the evolution and tectonic significance of the Triassic evaporite rocks in the Alpine orogenic system and the Neogene basins in the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the western Mediterranean. As the nature of the Triassic evaporite sequences, the varied diapiric structures they feed, and the occurrence of hydrocarbons suggest that the Triassic evaporites represent an efficient system to trap hydrocarbons, this book explores the topic with a wide swath, also devoting content to a relatively unexplored topic, the mobilization and deformation of the Triassic salt in the western and northern Tethys (from Iberia and North Africa, Pyrenees and Alps, Adriatic and Ionian) during the subsequent Alpine orogenic processes. The book includes chapters updating varied topics, like the Permian and Triassic chronostratigraphic scales, palaeogeographic reconstructions of the western Tethys since the Late Permian, the petroleum systems associated with Permo-Triassic salt, allochthonous salt tectonics, and a latest revision of salt tectonic processes in the Permian Zechstein Basin, the Atlantic Margins (from Barents Sea, Scotia, Portugal, Morocco, and Mauritania), the Alpine folded belts in Europe, and the various Triassic salt provinces in North Africa. The book is the go-to guide for salt tectonic researchers and those working in the hydrocarbon exploration industry. - Presents the first reference book to cover salt tectonics of Permo-Triassic period rocks - Features case studies of passive margins like the Barents and the North Sea, Greenland, Nova Scotia, offshore Mauritania, Morocco and Iberia, and folded belts like the Betics-Rif, Tell, Pyrenees, Atlas Mountains, Alps, Balkans, Apennines, the Adriatic and Ionian Seas, and the Zechstein Basin in Norway, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland - Integrates field observations, seismic examples, well-log data and models developed in universities with highly technical and advanced subsurface studies developed by the petroleum industry

List of members in each volume.