Facies and sedimentary development of dominantly siliciclastic Late Neogene sediments, Hamata area, Red Sea coast, Egypt.

The area west of Hamata between Wadi Ranga and wadi Um Ghazal, exposes the complete Neogene section. However outcrops of Lower and Middle Miocene are limited to a narrow belt in the north, wheras the rest of the area is extensively covered by  the U. Miocene-Pliocene siliciclastics of the Mersa Alam formation. The Pliocene carbonates of the Shagra Formation are localized only as a narrow belt close to the present Red Sea coast.

The U. Miocene , Pliocene and Plio-Pleistocene sediments are either fluviatile clastics (Samh Mb. of the Mersa Alam fm.), wave-dominated intertidal to shallow subtidal (Gabir Mb. of the Marsa Alam Fm.), open marine carbonates (Shagra Fm.) or continental fan deltas (Samadai Fm).

Due to relatively severe Late Miocene-Pliocene peripheral uplifts, a 12 km wide tectonic basin, bounded by NW and NE faults, affected both the basement and pre-U. Miocene sequence.  This depression recieved important siliciclastic dischaerge showing conspicuous E-W facies variations.