J.C. Gutiérrez-Marco, I. Rábano and D. García-Bellido (eds.), Ordovician of the World. Cuadernos del Museo Geominero, 14. Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Madrid. ISBN 978-84-7840-857-3 © Instituto Geológico y Minero de España 2011 ICE IN THE SAHARA: THE UPPER ORDOVICIAN GLACIATION IN SW LIBYA – A SUBSURFACE PERSPECTIVE N.D. McDougall1 and R. Gruenwald2 1 Repsol Exploración, Paseo de la Castellana 280, 28046 Madrid, Spain.
[email protected] 2 REMSA, Dhat El-Imad Complex, Tower 3, Floor 9, Tripoli, Libya. Keywords: Ordovician, Libya, glaciation, Mamuniyat, Melaz Shugran, Hirnantian. INTRODUCTION An Upper Ordovician glacial episode is widely recognized as a significant event in the geological history of the Lower Paleozoic. This is especially so in the case of the Saharan Platform where Upper Ordovician sediments are well developed and represent a major target for hydrocarbon exploration. This paper is a brief summary of the results of fieldwork, in outcrops across SW Libya, together with the analysis of cores, hundreds of well logs (including many high quality image logs) and seismic lines focused on the uppermost Ordovician of the Murzuq Basin. STRATIGRAPHIC FRAMEWORK The uppermost Ordovician section is the youngest of three major sequences recognized widely across the entire Saharan Platform: Sequence CO1: Unconformably overlies the Precambrian or Infracambrian basement. It comprises the possible Upper Cambrian to Lowermost Ordovician Hassaouna Formation. Sequence CO2: Truncates CO1 along a low angle, Type II unconformity. It comprises the laterally extensive and distinctive Lower Ordovician (Tremadocian-Floian?) Achebayat Formation overlain, along a probable transgressive surface of erosion, by interbedded burrowed sandstones, cross-bedded channel-fill sandstones and mudstones of Middle Ordovician age (Dapingian-Sandbian), known as the Hawaz Formation, and interpreted as shallow-marine sediments deposited within a megaestuary or gulf.