Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Ottoman, Italian, and Allied military control after the Second World War. There was little organised scientific activity before the annexation of Libya by Italy in 1911, although a number of expeditions, some with scientific interests, passed through Libya in the 19th century. The main objective of these expeditions, mostly organised by the London-based African Association, was to explore the region southwards from Murzuq to Timbuktu, determine the course of the Niger River and assess the commercial potential of the area. The earliest of these expeditions was undertaken by Friedrich Hornemann who travelled with a camel caravan from Egypt into Libya passing through the oases of Siwa and Awjilah, and then across the Haruj al Aswad to Murzuq, and subsequently to Tripoli.

Libya has the largest petroleum reserves of any country in Africa and since production began in 1961 over 20 bilhon barrels of oil have been produced. It has been calculated that Libya will reach the mid-point of reserves depletion in 2001 and this provides a timely point at which to review the state of petroleum exploration in Libya. It is perhaps surprising that no comprehensive account of the petroleum geology of Libya has yet been pubUshed. This is partly attributable to the fact that it is only within recent years that oil companies have released the information necessary to compile a book of this kind, and partly because of the onerous task of collecting the data. On average around fifty articles are pubhshed each year on the petroleum geology of Libya. A recent bibhographic search revealed over 5000 pubhcations dealing directly or indirectly with Libyan geology, and a large proportion of these pubhcations relate to hydrocarbons. <...>

Монография является новым вкладом в изучение геологического строения одного из интереснейших регионов мира – Африки – и дает первое целостное представление о его наименее изученной части Южной Сахары

На основании геолого-геофизических исследований в Республике Мали, проведенных советскими специалистами, в том числе автором, впервые обобщаются данные по стратиграфии, литологии, палеогегографии и тектонике Мали-Нигерской синеклизы

Проведен сравнительный анализ геологического строения исследуемого района с районами Северной Сахары. Рассматривается проблема нефтегазоносности республики Мали в вязи с нефтегазоносностью осадочных бассейнов Алжира и Ливии