The Evolution of Vegetation Through the Cretaceous of Egypt

This work summarizes the results of previous investigations on the plant fossil remains since the last century within the Egyptian strata, exclusively from the Cretaceous. Most of these data are often dispersed across many poorly accessible sources or not written in English. Cretaceous floras of Egypt are known from different localities mainly in the Western Desert, as well as small localities in southern Egypt and the Eastern Desert. The plant-bearing successions were deposited mostly in fluviatile and shallow marine settings. The oldest floras from the Aptian Abu Ballas (Kilf Kebir) Formation are dominated by gymnosperms and free-sporing plants. Starting from the Albian-early Cenomanian of the Sabaya Formation, followed by the Bahariya Formation (early Cenomanian), the Timsah Formation (Coniacian-Santonian), and ending with the youngest assemblage of the Campanian Mut Formation, turned into angiosperm-dominated communities. These assemblages are mostly well preserved and comprise diverse lineages of macroflora, as well as palynoflora. Our work focussed not only on previous records, but also on localizing many curated specimens while enhancing the available data on their palaeoecology and palaeoenvironment.