| Abstract |
The lithostratigraphy and petrography of the thin Cretaceous-Tertiary cover of deeper-water sediments overlying the shallow-water Jurassic Mazagan carbonate platform were studies by microfacies analysis. The diagenesis of authigenic barite, zeolite, silica, dolomite, and the formation of calcite cement, phosphoritic, glauconitic, and ferromanganese crusts were also studied. The following facies associations were recognized: Early Cretaceous (?upper Berriasian to ?Hauterivian) sandy echinoderm-rich pack-to wackestones; Upper Aptian to Albian (-Cenomanian) hemipelagic nanno marlstones were only deposited at the foot of the paleo-escarpment during the mid-Cretaceous transgressions: Late Cretaceous sediments comprise (a) pelagic, bathyal nannomicrite (Santonian/Campanian), (b) limestone breccia, and (c) a heterogeneous suite of massive and laminated phosphorites, and phosphorite breccias; and Paleogene (Paleocene-Eocene) foraminiferal pack- and wackestones, as well as radiolarian chalks with chert nodules (?Eocene) were deposited in a pelagic slope environment. |
