الفهرس 
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Abstract
The present work represents stratigraphical, macropaleontological and facies studies of the Eocene successions in two areas, Beni-Suef- Zaafarana Road, Northeastern Desert and northwest Qarun Lake, Fayum area, Western Desert.
The first area is located on the eastern side of the Nile Valley, about
25 km east Beni-Suef City and 125 km west El-Zaafarana area. Lithostratigraphically, the studied Eocene succession is subdivided into two rock units, from the base to top: the Beni-Suef and the Maadi formations. The Tarbul Member of the upper part of the Beni-Suef Formation, occupies most of the studied section, with a thickness of about 63 m. The Maadi Formation represents the top most part of the section, with a thickness of about 14 m is composed of fossiliferous grayish to greenish yellow shale and sandy marls rich in macrofossils ( gastropods, bivalves, cephalopods, and corals).
Paleontologically, the systematic description of different faunal groups collected from Zaafarana shows 97 species. Among these groups are the gastropods with 57 species belonging to 26 families, followed by the 27 bivalve species belonging to 12 families and 3 cephalopod species with
2 families and only one echinoid and one scaphopod species were identified. Eight coral species are recorded and studied here for the first time from the Eocene rocks of Egypt. The paleobiogeographic distribution of the coral groups and the cephalopod species are presented and discussed in this work.
The microfacies study of this area revealed fifteen microfacies types which are grouped into five lithofacies associations related to peritidal marine setting, including mudflat, restricted lagoon, high-energy subtidal shoals, and shallow subtidal and deep subtidal open marine depositional environments.
The second area is northwest Qarun Lake section, Fayum, Western Desert. The studied rock sequence attains about 205 m consist of the Middle–Late Eocene successions which are divided into three formations arranged from base to top into Gehannam Formation, which is unconformably overlain by Birket Qarun and Qasr El-Sagha Formations. Some vertebrate faunal groups collected from this area including shark
teeth, vertebral bone and turtle carapace were discussed and their paleobiogeographic distribution was presented. Detailed study on Kerunia cornuta Mayer-Eymar, 1899 with referring to the symbiotic relationship between the encrusted genus Hydractinia and the host gastropod shell was discussed and an in situ hermit crab in the host gastropod shell in Kerunia cornuta was documented for the first time from the Eocene rocks of Egypt. Sixty thin sections were subjected to petrographic and microfacies analysis to interpret the paleoenvironment prevailed during the deposition of the middle and the upper Eocene sediments in the study area. The microfacies study indicates that the area was subjected to transition from open-marine bay or gulf/marginal marine swamp/supratidal (Gehannam Formation) to open-marine (Birket Qarun Formation) to brackish-marine (Qasr El-Sagha Formation).
The ichnological study in this area documents low diversity of the invertebrate trace fossils with only six ichnospecies are recorded, Thalassinoides horizontalis Myrow, 1995, Thalassinoides suevicus Kennedy, 1967, Ophiomorpha nodosa Lundgren, 1891, Gastrochaenolites lapidicus Kelly and Bromley 1984, Gastrochaenolites torpedo, Kelly and Bromley, 1984 Gastrochaenolites isp. and some root structure (Rhizoliths), however, a first record of insect trace fossils Uruguay isp. is recorded in the Eocene rocks of this area.