Phanerozoic Global Sea-Level Changes:
Evidences from Tunisia Illustrating
how Eduard Suess’ Concepts (Gondwana,
Tethys, Eustasy) are Still Relevant
Mohamed Soussi
Abstract
This key note is given in honor of the Austrian geologist
Eduard Suess, born in London, August 20, 1831 and died
in Vienna in April 26, 1914. It aims to illustrate, using
some key selected stratigraphic intervals from the
Tunisian geological archive, how Edward Suess’s con-
cepts are still relevant and is also planned to briefly
introduce the most important features of the Geology of
Tunisia for the guests of the CAJG Conference, Novem-
ber 2018)
This key note is given in honor of the Austrian geologist
Eduard Suess, born in London, August 20, 1831 and died in
Vienna in April 26, 1914. It aims to illustrate, using some
key selected stratigraphic intervals from the Tunisian geo-
logical archive, how Edward Suess’s concepts are still
relevant and is also planned to briefly introduce the most
important features of the Geology of Tunisia for the guests
of the CAJG Conference, November 2018). Some of these
features are in relation with the Gondwanan super continent
development and fragmentation while other are connected to
the Tethyan Ocean developed between the Gondwana to the
south and Eurasia to the north during the Mesozoic before
the onset of its closure during the Cenozoic.
Indeed, it will be shown progressively during the pre-
sentation that the major events that accompanied the history
of the Geology of Tunisia fit perfectly the line of thoughts
that Eduard Suess had at the end of the nineteenth century
M. Soussi (&)
Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum Geology Laboratory
(LR18ES07), Faculty of Sciences,
University of Tunis El Manar, Tunis, Tunisia
e-mail: Mohamed.Soussi@fst.utm.tn
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
M. Boughdiri et al. (eds.), Paleobiodiversity and Tectono-Sedimentary Records in the Mediterranean Tethys
and Related Eastern Areas, Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01452-0_1
especially about the role played by sea level fluctuations in
the build of the stratigraphic archive. This conference also
brings additional arguments to his theory which continues to
impact our kind of reasoning, even if this conveys new
modern terms created to explain more the process control-
ling the global Earth’s dynamics especially the global plate
tectonics and the eustatic movement theories. Among the
concepts and ideas, proposed for the first time by this
imminent “geoscientist”, based on his exploration and geo-
logical investigations of distant regions of the world, some
are retained for the purpose of our conference:
(1) The hypothesis of the existence, 500 million years ago,
of an ancient supercontinent named Gondwana or
Gondwanaland (Eduard Suess 1885). This “megacon-
tinent” eventually split into several continents which are
Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian
subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula.
(2) The hypothesis of the existence of an inland sea des-
ignated the “Tethys” (with reference to the Greek
Goddess of the Sea) situated between Gondwana to the
South and Laurasia to the North (Eduard Suess 1893).
(3) the creation of the term Eustasy, (Edward Suess, in
1988, translated and published in English in 1906) to
describe the rises and falls of sea level (eustatic
movements) as a major factors controlling the devel-
opment of transgressive and regressive events corre-
latable worldwide.
The above three concepts among other important ideas,
mainly related to tectonics (genesis of the Alps and the
introduction of the concept of the east African rift fracture in
1881, etc.…) have been detailed in his famous and monu-
mental, three volume treaty entitled “The Face of the Earth”
(1885–1909) just before Wegener’s Continental drift theory
presented in 1912 and also the establishment of the theory of
plate tectonic in the 1960s which greatly changed the line of
thinking of geologists about the dynamic evolution of the
Planet.
3
4 M. Soussi
1 Why Tunisia Can Be Considered as Good
Example Supporting Eduard Suess’s
Concepts?
1. Tunisia is situated in a remarkable situation between
Africa and Europe. Indeed, with its Atlassic and Tellian
domains, situated to the north and displaying intensive
deformation typical of the Alpine Orogenic system
stretching from Morocco to the West into the Himalayan
ranges from China to the East and its relatively stable
Saharan platform domain, belonging to a cratonic
domain situated in the south, Tunisia can be considered
as useful relay or bridge between South America, Africa
and Europe that can serve for any attempt of geological
reconstruction between theses continents through geo-
logical time.
2. Its Phanerozoic stratigraphic record can be split into two
Megacycles. The first one, which extends between 590
and 251 Ma (Paleozoic), is encountered in the Ghadames
Basin (southern Tunisia) currently buried under the
desert (Oriental Erg) while the second Megacycle, com-
prising the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic (=251 Ma) is
well exposed in the Saharan platform domain to the south
and in the Atlassic foreland belt system (Central and
North of Tunisia) to the north. These two major mega-
cycles, labeled “Gondwanian” and “Tethyan” respec-
tively are separated by a major unconformity resulting of
the Hercynian deformation and Pangea supercontinent
formation that occurred in the late Carboniferous
(299 Ma). Their composition is dominantly (99%) rep-
resented by sedimentary rocks accumulated in superim-
posed basins developed during the Paleozoic and the
Mesozoic.
The sediments of the Gondwanian cycle are Paleozoic in
age and are recognized and well characterized thanks to the
numerous boreholes targeting the prolific petroleum systems
of North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia and Libya). They are
mainly composed of siliciclastic deposits (sandstones and
shales), deposited either in fluvio-deltaïc to coastal shallow
marine settings, and constituting fair to good hydrocarbon
reservoirs and intra seal formation or deposited in offshore
settings, during major maximum transgressive events
(Middle Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian organic-rich
facies), and constituting the primary source of the prolific
petroleum systems of the Sahara of North Africa. However,
the sediments of the Tethyan super-cycle which
unconformably rest above the deformed Paleozoic
series in the Ghadames basin, are formed at the base by
dominantly fluvial sandstones and shales (“Trias
Argilo-Gréseux” = TAGI) constituting the main productive
hydrocarbon reservoir in southern Tunisia. The latter is in
turn overlain by the Upper Triassic- Lower Jurassic evap-
oritic (limestones, dolomites, salts and gypsum) acting as
efficient seal at regional scale. These rocks are well exposed
along the Saharan platform domain (Dahar). The geological
investigations conducted on this Phanerozoic archive, which
Phanerozoic Global Sea-Level Changes: Evidences from Tunisia …
covers a long period of 600 Ma, by numerous geologists of
different disciplines, in southern, central and northern
Tunisia, during much more than one century, allowed the
collection of a huge surface and subsurface information.
This large information, when properly gathered and
synthetized can be used in regional stratigraphic correlations
and plaleogeographic reconstructions of the domains situ-
ated between the North Africa to the south, the Europe to the
north as well as of the vanished Tehyan Ocean which was
situated betwixt and between as ingeniously hypothesized by
Eduard Suess 135 years back.
For the purpose of this conference, only some key peri-
ods, illustrating the way by which the Phanerozoic global sea
level changes and associated transgressive and regressive
events have been recorded in Tunisia, as part of the Gond-
wana and the Tethyan domains, will be presented. The mains
facts used for the conference are gathered from data col-
lected thanks to my personal works, the works of my team or
other works conducted in collaboration with colleagues
around the world during the implementation of academic or
industrial projects such as the Peri-Tehys Program. In the
Conference we will focus on the following three main
aspects each of which is connected to the Eduard Suess’s
concepts
2 Henceforth Tunisia Is a Key Part
of the Northern Gondwana
Supercontinent as Inferred
from Paleontological New Finds
Recent intensive excavations undertaken in 2012 and 2014
in southern and central Tunisia by a multidisciplinary team
composed of Tunisian and Polish researchers allowed to
discover an important diagnostic ichnofauna (Dinausor foot
prints within the Triassic and Jurassic strata of the Saharan
platform and the Early Cretaceous strata of central Atlas
Tunisia) as part of the northern Gondwana supercontinent.
The new finds confirm that northwest and northeast Africa
might have been an important corridors for the exchange of
fauna between Euramerica in the northern part and Gand-
wana in the southern part of the Pangea supercontinent.
Furthermore, paleobiogeograhically, the fauna (conchos-
tracans, ostracods, fishes, etc.…) and flora (charophytes)
recently discovered in the lower Cretaceous rocks (Bar-
remian, Aptian and Albian non marine and marginal marine
rocks) by the researchers of our team with the collaboration
of well known experts from Poland, China, Switzerland,
USA and Austria, clearly shows good relations with South
America, Europe/West Africa.
5
Moreover, comparative studies strongly suggest that the
migration of this fauna between eastern south America/west
Africa and Asia was ensured via numerous northern African
Peri-Tethyan islands (such as the Early Cretaceous Kairouan
islands of central Tunisia). As a consequence, it is thought
that these exposed lands could have worked as bridges for
fauna migration.
3 Tunisia Is Part of the Vanished Tethyan
Ocean Which Presence Was Hypothesized
by Eduard Suess in 1893
As outlined above, the stratigraphic archive of Tunisia is
composed of two well separated supercycles named as
“Gandwanian and Tethyan”. The tethyan cycle records the
progressive break-up of the Pangea that start occurring since
Late Carboniferous and continued throughout the Mesozoic
when North Africa became a broad Tethyan facing passive
continental margin.
From the Triassic-Jurassic Cretaceous succession, which
records synrift, post rift phases and passive margin devel-
opment, will be presented the paleogeographic maps of key
periods:
• the Syn-rift Permian clastics and reefal carbonates. They
are currently well exposed in the northern part of the
Saharan platform (Jebel Tebaga of Medenine). The latter
represent the unique Permian marine rocks in North
Africa
• the Triassic fluviatil deposits (TAGI reservoir) and
overlying transgressive retrograding evaporitic facies
deposited in large and subsident sag basin. They act as
efficient seal at regional scale. These two kind of facies
constitute the main ingredients of the major prolific
petroleum system of North Africa in which the Silurian
Hot shales act as the principal source rock.
• the Jurassic (Callovian-Oxfordian) facies which represent
the deepest sedimentary recorded in the different
paleogeographic domains of Tunisia. In northern Tunisia
the Callovo-Oxfordian facies are represented by
the well known “Ammonitico-rosso facies” developed on
pelagic swells laterally relayed in the deepest part
of the sedimentary system (basin) by typical radiolaritic
facies.
• the Cretaceous deep marine organic-rich facies of central
and northern Tunisia which are coeval their analogues
Oceanic Anoxic Events well documented worldwide.
The latter constitute the principal source of the petroleum
systems of the Pelagian block.
6 M. Soussi
4 Sea Level Changes as Recorded
in the Ghadames Basin, the Saharan
Platform and Atlas Tunisia
(Third Suess’ Concept)
For the Paleozoic sea level, falls and rises will be treated the
Ordovician/Silurian deposits of Ghadames basin as
glacio-eustatic example controlled by the growth and decay
of ice sheet. While, regarding the Mesozoic, throughout the
Saharan Platform of southern Tunisia, the Meozoic deposits
are mainly composed of siliciclastic and/or evaporitic
deposits including shallow marine carbonate platform sedi-
ments constituting good markers in the landscape as they can
be traced continuously over several kilometers. Using the
modern sequence stratigraphic approach we will demon-
strate that the main six carbonate episodes of the Mesozoic
of the Saharan platform perfectly coincide with the major
second order highest eustatic pulses of Haq chart (2014).
This can be explained by the fact that in the Saharan plat-
form local tectonism had a little effect on the sedimentation
control. Instead, the examples taken from the Jurassic and
Cretaceous of Atlas Tunisia, where tectonic were relatively
important, show how the interaction between the global sea
level signatures and intra-platform local deformation, is
important in the development of reduced stratigraphic suc-
cessions characterized by frequent unconformities and gaps.