Contributions to the Pleistocene Coral Reefs of the Red Sea Coast, Egypt

The Pleistocene coral reefs of the Red Sea coast form discontinuous strip in three morphological units, with elevations range from 10 to 35 m above the present sea level and with maximum width of about 550 m. The morphological steps of the studied reefal units are caused by on-lap during different sea levels, by tectonics, or by erosion during transgression. Facies patterns within reefs exhibit lateral and vertical changes. The lateral development of each unit begins at the shore, covering the whole lagoonal facies and ends at the upper reef slope. These changes either reflect transitions within the depositional environment or they are related to minor/major sea level fluctuations. The vertical pattern shows a transgressive sequence in the lower (youngest) and the upper (oldest) units and a regressive one in the middle unit. Eighty-eight scleractinian species have been identified. They belong to 3 suborders, 8 families and 27 genera. The straitigraphic range of the majority of the identified species, which have been previously recorded from the recent sediments of study area is extended here to the Pleistocene age. The paleo- and -biogeographic distribution of the studied species indicated that all belong to Indo-Pacific affinity as well as Atlantic-Mediterranean for very few. (author)