Journal of Petroleum Geology, Vol.1, No.1, pp. 79-101, 1978

©Copyright 2000 Scientific Press, Ltd.

PERMIAN TO TERTIARY FAUNAS AND PALEOGEOGRAPHY: SOMALIA, KENYA, TANZANIA, MOZAMBIQUE, MADAGASCAR, SOUTH AFRICA

Maurice Kamen-Kaye*

* Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

Abstract

Permian to Tertiary faunas along the eastern margin of Africa, and on Madagascar, are presented, described, and discussed. Presentation of the faunas is made in four charts: Permo-Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary. A correlation chart provides tentative time-rock units. Paleogeography northeast and east of Africa is derived from the writer's analysis of marine invertebrate fauna, and is delineated in sketches for Late Permian, Jurassic, and Cretaceous times. Limitations exist on the conclusions that can be drawn from fauna alone. Pelagic waters can be indicated, but their extent cannot be specified, and lack of diversification in some of the pelagic genera results in unavoidable ambiguities of interpretation. Nothing in the faunal evidence so far available, however, disproves unequivocally the existence of an ancestral Indian Ocean from Late Permian onward. Even if such an ancestral ocean did not exist the pattern of pelagic waters that can be inferred from marine invertebrate fauna constitutes an impediment to models that suture Australia or India to Africa or Madagascar. Peninsular India, on readings of its own geology across the foreland-orogen boundary, may have occupied its present position through the whole of geologic time.