STUDIES ON THE BENTHIC FORAMINIFERA IN THE RECENT MARINE SEDIMENTS OF THE UPPER CONTINENTAL SHELF OF RED SEA EGYPT

Abstract

Recentl y, there has been an increase in interest in the Red Sea and its marine life, but most of the publicati ons about i t remain on a general level. The Red Sea occupies an elongate escarpment bounded depression (250 to 450 Km wide, between the uplifted Arabian and African shields), and it extends in southest direction from Suez to the Bab El-Mandeb in a nearly st rai ght line, separating the coasts of Arabia from those of Egypt, S udan and Ethiopia. In the south, it i s separated from the Gu lf of Aden by a shallow sill, which lies about -130 Km inside the strait of Ba b El­ Mandeb. The Red Sea here is onl y 25 Km wide. Its total length is about 2000 Km, and its bread th increases from north (- 210 Km) to south

(- 400 Km ).

The few publications dealing with foraminifera a re almost descripti ve and lacking the sta tistical studies on the a bunda nce and distri bution of these orga nisms, as well as the ecological factors which control thei r di stribution in the different zones of the Red Sea. The objecti ve of this work is to stud y the systematic, a bund ance, distribut ion, di versity and ecology of the benthic foraminifera in 80 samples coll ected from two different locati ons. Both locati ons represent rather small areas, with water depths ranging from 0.0 to 50m beneath sea level. The first location is situated between Hurghada and Gemsha in the northern part of the Egyptian Red Sea coast at latitudes 27 ° 201 and 27 ° 31 1 N and longitudes 33° 351 and 33° 421 E. It includes three wad i s namel y Wad i El-Ha mra, Wadi EI-Esh and Wadi Abu-Shaar. The second location is situated in the southern part of the Egyptian Red Sea coast between Marsa Alam a nd Ras Banas a nd includes Wadi El-Gemal at Latitude 24° 391N and Longitude 35 ° 051E as well as Wadi Khashir a t Latitude 24° I 7'N and Longitude 35 ° 21 1E. ......