Taoudeni Basin

The Taoudeni is the largest sedimentary basin in Northwest Africa, formed during the Middle to Late Proterozoic. It continued to subside until the Middle Paleozoic, when Hercynian deformation and uplift occurred. It contains up to of Late Precambrian and Paleozoic sediments. Exploratory drilling since the 1980s has found indications of petroleum in the Late Precambrian, Silurian and Late Devonian formations. Sediments are thicker in the western half of the basin. Biogeochemists at the Australian National University found pigments in 1.1 billion year old marine shale from the Taoudeni Basin in Mauritania. They interpret this as fossil chlorophyll from cyanobacteria, and hypothesize that the bacteria were rapidly buried and protected from oxygen. The fossilized chlorophyll was discovered in shale samples from a mining operation. == Petroleum geology ==

, Eni, Total S.A., Woodside and CNPC. However, the remote location and harsh environment of the Sahara Desert would make extraction expensive. == References ==