New tectono-sedimentary evidence constraining the timing of the positive tectonic inversion and the Eocene Atlasic phase in northern Tunisia: Implication for the North African paleo-margin evolution

The Medjez-el-Bab (MEB) box anticline, northern Tunisia, gives new evidence allowing us to precise the tectonic agenda of the North African paleo-margin inversion. On the one hand, the examination of this structure permits us to show that the inversion began approximately by the transition between the Lower and Upper Senonian. On the other hand, it highlights the occurrence of a Middle-to-Late Eocene compressive tectonic phase (the so-called Atlas or Atlasic phase), which is well recorded by reworking material within the Middle Eocene deposits as well as by the angular unconformity of the Late Eocene beds, supporting the hypothesis of compressive Eocene phase (Atlasic phase) generalized all over the Maghreb.