For Review Only 1 Neoproterozoic–Devonian stratigraphic evolution of the eastern Murzuq Basin, Libya: a tale of tilting in the central Sahara D.P. Le Heron * , G. Meinhold † , K.A. Bergig ‡ * Department of Earth Sciences, Queen's Building, Royal Holloway University of London, UK, TW20 0BY, UK † CASP, Cambridge University, West Building, 181A Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, CB3 0DH; Present address: Department of Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, Geoscience Center Göttingen (GZG), Goldschmidtstraβe 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany ‡ Libyan Petroleum Institute, PO Box: 6431, Tripoli, Libya. Correspondence: D.P. Le Heron, Department of Earth Sciences, Queen's Building, Royal Holloway University of London, UK, TW20 0BY, UK. E-mail: d.leheron@es.rhul.ac.uk The Murzuq Basin is one of the most petroliferous basins of North Africa. Its remote eastern flank, has been largely ignored since early reconnaissance work in the 1950s and 1960s. This paper presents new stratigraphic and sedimentological data on the Neoproterozoic through Devonian succession from the Mourizidie and Dor el Gussa regions. The Neoproterozoic to Cambrian Mourizidie and Hasawnah formations in the eastern part of the Mourizidie dip to the east and north-east, resting directly on late Precambrian metasediments and granitoids. These strata record the initial progradation of sand-dominated braidplain systems upon peneplained Precambrian basement. Rhyolite clasts in the Hasawnah Formation may record tectonically driven uplift and unroofing in the southern Tibesti Massif or tectonomagmatic rejuvenation to the south of this massif. In the western part of the Mourizidie region, Late Ordovician through Silurian strata (Mamuniyat and Tanezzuft–Akakus formations) directly overlie late Precambrian metasediments and granitoids, and dip at a low angle toward the west into the Murzuq Basin. Elsewhere at the eastern Murzuq Basin flank, in Dor el Gussa, Late Ordovician glaciogenic sediments rest with angular unconformity upon shallow marine sandstones of Cambrian–Ordovician age. This angular unconformity may also occur in the Mourizidie region and indicates widespread tectonism, either as a result of a Middle–Late Ordovician orogenic event, far-field tectonism related to the opening of the Rheic Ocean along the northern margin of Page 1 of 46 Basin Research 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60