Figure Captions (Late
Permian-Triassic)
Figure 1: Stratigraphic column from the Late Permian to the Holocene
modified from Figure 1.2 of Sharland et al. (2001); with a
representative selection of the major stratigraphic units mentioned in
the text.
Figure 2: Structural interpretation of the Arabian Plate as it relates
to the distribution of the Late Permian to Holocene paleofacies.
Click here for sequence of maps of Late Permian and Triassic facies.
Figure 3: Paleofacies of the Late Permian. This time period spanned the
deposition of the Khuff, Karmia, and Amanous formations, and
their regional equivalents [MFS P20 to intra-Tr10].The Khuff was
deposited on the new northeastern passive margin with Neo-Tethys. A
major Late-Permian unconformity occurred within P20. With information
from: Al Jallal (1995); Andrews (1991, 1992a); Béchennec et al. (1989);
Garfunkel (1989); Guiraud et al. (2001); Koop and Stoneley (1982); Le
Métour et al. (1995); Le Nindre, Manivit et al. (1990); Murris (1980);
Szabo and Kheradpir (1978); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous
Report 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
Figure 4: Paleofacies of the Early Triassic. This time period spanned
the deposition of the Sudair, Mahil, Amanous, Beduh, and Mirga Mir
formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS Tr10 to intra-Tr40].
With information from: Andrews (1992a); Guiraud et al. (2001); Makhlouf
et al. (1996); Murris (1980); Sawaf and Tarek (1996); Szabo and
Kheradpir (1978); Walley (2001).
Figure 5: Paleofacies of the Middle Triassic. This time period spanned
the deposition of the Jilh, Gulailah, and Geli Khana formations, and
their regional equivalents [MFS Tr40 to intra- Tr60]. With information
from: Andrews (1992a); Guiraud et al. (2001); Koop and Stoneley (1982);
Le Nindre, Manivit et al. (1990); Makhlouf et al (1996); Murris (1980);
Sawaf et al. (2001); Szabo and Kheradpir (1978).
Figure
6: Paleofacies of the Late Triassic. This time period spanned the
deposition of the Minjur, Kurra Chine, and Dashtak formations, and their
regional equivalents [MFS Tr60 to intra-J10]. These sediments were
partly deposited during a second Triassic infilling-subsidence event.
The early Carnian ‘Saharan salinity crisis’ is a clear indication of a
sea-level lowstand at 232 Ma. With information from: Andrews (1992a); Béchennec et al. (1989); Beydoun and Habib (1995); Garfunkel (1989);
Makhlouf et al. (1996); Le Nindre, Manivit et al. (1990); Murris (1980);
Ponikarov et al. (1966); Sawaf and Tarek (1996); Sawaf et al. (2001);
Szabo and Kheradpir (1978); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous
Report 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
INTRODUCTION
The lithostratigraphic units of the Arabian Plate have been described in
outcrop and subsurface from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Oman and
from the Red Sea to the Zagros Mountains. Serious variations in
nomenclature exist regionally and between the surface and subsurface.
Various authors, for example, Beydoun (1988), Alsharhan and Nairn
(1997), and Christian (1997) have published regional lithostratigraphic
reviews in attempts to comprehend this vast amount of stratigraphic
information. Most recently, Sharland et al. (2001) published the first
chronostratigraphic interpretation of the rock units of the Arabian
Plate.
Most of the previous lithostratigraphic studies have presented
paleofacies, interpreted environments, and associated petroleum systems,
in separate discussions. This study reconstructs paleofacies for time
intervals from the Late Permian to the Holocene, each reconstruction
being shown with its associated oil and gas fields. The study helps to
illustrate the close relationship between lithofacies, depositional
environments, and petroleum reservoirs. It also highlights active
structural elements and the influence of relative sea-level changes
interpreted from the paleofacies variations.
This review of the Arabian Plate benefited from its association with the
International Geological Correlation Program (IGCP) Project 369,
‘Comparative Evolution of the Peri-Tethyan Rift Basins’, which in turn
is affiliated to the Peri-Tethys Program. The Project’s aim was to
integrate geological and geophysical data in a study of the evolution of
the rift and wrench basins located along the northern and southern
Tethyan margins and adjacent platforms. Paleoenvironmental maps of the
Peri-Tethyan domain from the Urals to the Atlantic Ocean and from the
Baltic Shield to Equatorial Africa were produced. The Muséum National
d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris published the results as Memoir No. 6
(Ziegler et al, 2001). The results are accessible on the Internet
(http://www-sst.unil/igcp_369/default369.htm) and are also available as
a CD-ROM (Stampfli et al., 2001).
For ease of reference between this paper and the sequence stratigraphic
study by Sharland et al. (2001) that describes the sedimentary
architecture using Genetic Stratigraphic and Depositional Sequences, I
have placed in square brackets equivalent dated surfaces referred to in
their publication. These are interpreted Genetic Stratigraphic Sequences
(GSS) bounded by Maximum Flooding Surfaces (MFS) identified by Period
[Jurassic J10 dated at 185 Ma] and Arabian Plate (AP)
Tectonostratigraphic Megasequences [base of AP7 dated at 182 Ma].
Figure 1 is a stratigraphic column from Late Permian to Holocene based
on Figure 1.2 of Sharland et al. (2001). It shows the MFSs, AP
boundaries and a representative selection of the major stratigraphic
units mentioned in the text.
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STRUCTURAL TRENDS
Figure 2 is a structural interpretation of the Arabian Plate as it
relates to the distribution of the Upper Permian to Holocene paleofacies
patterns. Their distribution appears to be influenced by N-, NW-and
NE-trending fault systems.
• The regularly spaced, northerly trends that comprise the Central
Arabian Arch are interpreted as reflecting the Precambrian basement
architecture. The structures along the Arch may have originated during
the Amar Collision (640–620 Ma) of the Rayn Plate (in the east) with the
Arabian-Nubian Craton (in the west), and the ensuing Najd Rift (570–530
Ma) (Al-Husseini, 2000). Some of the well-known northerly structural
trends are the Summan Platform, Dibdibah Trough, Khurais-Burgan
Anticline, En Nala (Ghawar-Safaniya) Anticline, and the Qatar Arch.
• The northwesterly grain is visible in the Arabian Shield as the Najd
Faults, and is interpreted as bounding the Arabian Plate along the
Zagros Suture.
• The northeasterly trend corresponds to the Dibba Fault, Oman salt
basins, and the Wadi al Batin lineament, and appears to control the
distribution of Infracambrian salt basins of the Arabian Gulf and Oman (Husseini,
1988; Husseini and Husseini, 1990; Loosveld et al., 1996; Al-Husseini,
2000).
The intersection of these three fault trends results in a jointed
basement fabric that has been reactivated by successively younger
deformations governed by the interplay of local and far-field stresses
related to large-scale plate tectonic processes. The different
structural orientations of these faults resulted in marked mechanical
inhomogenities that reacted differently to external plate events. Nearly
all the paleofacies maps show evidence of these older structural grains,
particularly in central Saudi Arabia.
Of particular relevance to this study is the late Paleozoic (?Late
Devonian to Late Carboniferous) structural uplift that followed a phase
of comparative stability during the early Paleozoic. This uplift is
evident from regional isochron thinning measured between the Lower
Silurian and Permian seismic reflections in central Saudi Arabia (McGillivray
and Husseini, 1992; Wender et al., 1998). The tectonic event is referred
to as the ‘Hercynian’ orogeny, a term more properly applied to Europe.
During this orogeny, the Arabian Plate was rotated through 90º in an
anticlockwise direction (Konert et al., 2001), and central Arabia was
uplifted, tilted down eastward, and deeply eroded. A series of
N-trending basement structures were uplifted along the Central Arabian
Arch (McGillivray and Husseini, 1992; Wender et al., 1998). Extensive
erosion of lower Paleozoic rocks took place over the Hercynian
paleohighs on the Arch during the mid-Carboniferous and Early Permian.
South of Riyadh, low relief structures formed due to Hercynian movements
(Simms, 1995, Evans et al., 1997) but erosion over their crests was less
than in the north over the Arch. Fluvial to alluvial clastics (e.g. the
Unayzah Formation of Saudi Arabia), were deposited over the Hercynian
relief.
During the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian, glaciation occurred in
Oman (Al Khlata Formation), southern Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and
periglacial and fluviatile conditions existed in central Arabia. In Oman
and Yemen, tillites rest directly on glacially striated Precambrian
basement. Hughes Clarke (1988) interpreted the glaciation as having been
restricted to south of present-day 20ºN.
With the exception of the Neogene Dead Sea Transform Fault, which formed
in two phases as a left-lateral, strike-slip dislocation of about 100 km
(Garfunkel, 1998, Walley, 1998b), and the Maradi fault zone in Oman,
most of the tectonic features on the Arabian Plate show only minor
wrench motion. Eustatic sea-level fluctuations combined with minor fault
movements may have predisposed certain seaways that allowed deep-marine
branches of the Neo-Tethys to penetrate into the Craton, forming
intrashelf basins. Under restrictive conditions, such as during the Late
Permian to Jurassic, these basins became anoxic or hypersaline (e.g. the
Gotnia and Rub’ Al-Khali basins of the Middle and Late Jurassic).
Subsequently, in the Early Cretaceous, the Mesopotamian Basin was a
depositional site for continental clastics. The shelf basins were
frequently rimmed by biogenic build-ups and coral reefs, as in the
Arabian Basin (Powers et al., 1966; Le Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet 1990,
1990a), or rudist banks, as in the Rub’ Al-Khali Basin. Bahamas-type
lime-sand belts and biogenic shoals were frequently developed on the
platform-shelf margins.
The 19 time frames shown here are those proposed by the IGCP (Figure
1),
according to the Geological Time Scale of Gradstein and Ogg (1996). The
reservoir rocks of oil fields (green) and gas fields (red) on a
particular figure belong to that time interval. The interpreted
lithofacies definitions were selected by the ICGP project. They are
based on an idealized bathymetric profile of a plate margin that
differentiates the lateral sequence of depositional environments into
the following four major groups:
1. Continental environments corresponding to dunes, lacustrine,
fluviatile, alluvial, and coastal plain deposits (e.g. Continental
deposits).
2. Neritic environments comprising supratidal and intertidal deposits,
inner- and outer-shelf sediments, including deeper-water deposits that
occur in association with significant intrashelf basins (e.g.
Marginal-marine/coastal/deltaic deposits; Shallow-marine carbonate
platform; Open marine carbonate shelf; Shallow-marine clastics).
3. Bathyal environments reflecting the continental slope and continental
rise, and the resulting deposits characterized by hemipelagic sediments,
turbidites and debris flows (e.g. Deep-marine carbonates; Deep-marine
clastics).
4. Abyssal environments represented by the predominance of mudstones
with a pelagic fauna (e.g. Deep-marine clastics).
These depositional environments are color-coded and distinguish between
predominantly siliciclastic and carbonate sediments. Formation names are
placed on the maps in the areas to which they relate. However, on maps
that cover a long time span there is a recognized problem of how to show
the most relevant formations. In these instances, the longest-ranging
formations are generally shown.
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Late Permian: Kazanian to Tatarian (256–248.2 Ma) (Figure
3)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the lower and lower upper
Khuff (Arabian Peninsula) [MFS P20 to intra-Tr10], Karmia (Levant), and
Amanous (Syria) formations, and their regional equivalents. The Khuff
was deposited on the new northeastern passive margin with Neo-Tethys. A
major Late-Permian unconformity occurred within P20.
In the Late Permian, continental rifting and spreading took place along
the present-day Zagros Suture and Gulf of Oman as the Neo-Tethys Ocean
started to form [base of AP6 at 255 Ma]. Short-term sea-level
oscillations caused recurrent shoaling pulses that culminated in the
establishment of evaporite sabkhas and salinas particularly over the
Central Arabian Arch. The carbonates represent a shallow-shelf to a
coastal-plain depositional environment. In general, a weakly prograding
terrigenous to shallow-marine clastic shoreline existed. Sharland et al.
(2001) interpreted three MFS in the Permian Khuff [P20, P30, and P40]
and correlated them over most of the Arabian Plate.
Paleofacies
The Khuff sequence varies in thickness from 80 m near the onlap margin
along the Arabian Shield, to over 800 m in the Arabian Gulf. Although no
marked thinning of the Khuff units is evident over older structures, the
cumulative thickness of coastal sabkha deposits over the Hercynian
structures of the Central Arabian Arch suggests that they formed subtly
positive blocks (Al-Jallal, 1995).
In general, the lower Khuff in the Gulf region was transgressive before
becoming regressive and culminating in a marked sea-level lowstand (Haq
et al., 1988) toward the end of Khuff deposition [intra-Tr10
unconformity]. As a result of this lowstand, the sediments consisted of
shallow-water carbonates and rapidly expanding coastal evaporite sabkhas
in central Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Coastal complexes that rimmed the
western and southern uplands were lined with significant amounts of
sandstones and shales.
Le Nindre, Manivit, and Vaslet (1990) illustrated this transition
between the western upland and the shallow-marine environments, west of
Riyadh. At the Khuff locality, an embayment of at least 100 km extended
southwestward from Neo-Tethys into the Arabian Shield. The western
Gondwana hinterland appeared to have been drained by low-energy rivers
that discharged siliciclastics onto the sabkhas and intertidal flats to
form a mixed carbonate-clastic fringe. These mixed facies gave way
eastward to shallow-marine carbonates (dolomites and dolomitic
limestones), containing algal material.
The location of the drainage system at the southern spur of the Arabian
Shield was significant, specifically in the context of the Precambrian
basement high beneath Riyadh (McGillivray and Husseini, 1992). Mainly
shallow seas were widespread and true abyssal conditions in the Neo-Tethys
developed only in southeastern Iran and the Gulf of Oman.
Al-Jallal (1995) depicted a cyclic deposition of shallow-water
carbonates that shoal upward and develop widespread, multiple evaporite
sabkhas. In the Gulf region, the total evaporite thickness exceeds 100 m
and is thickest in the Dibdibah Trough, possibly indicating increased
subsidence. The main anhydrite accumulation appears to be confined to
south of the Wadi al Batin Fault. This implies that the central Arabian
horsts ceased to exist as positive, paleomorphological features.
Farther east, and offshore from the Arabian Arch along the “shallow
shelf break” (Al-Jallal, 1995), a curvilinear trend passes from the Rub’
Al-Khali, first east and then north of Qatar. It shows expanded
carbonate sections and, in the Upper Permian Khuff C and B, repeated
reservoir developments and minor evaporite accumulations. This feature
may represent a deeper-water environment reflecting an approximate
N-trending sag, presumably bounded by the Qatar Arch to the west. No
hydrocarbon accumulations have been located in this zone, which
apparently lacks a suitable caprock.
Offshore along the outer shelf break, higher energy calcarenites formed.
The outer belt that marked the Arabian Plate margin was laced with
reefoid, coral-algal, and detrital carbonates. Abyssal (hemipelagic)
carbonates developed in Fars and on the Gulf of Oman-Makran slope.
In the Late Permian, a shallow-marine carbonate platform (Khuff and Saiq
formations) was established over most of Oman. This transgression was
the result of subsidence of the northeastern Oman margin that resulted
from Neo-Tethys protorifting. Near Muscat, a rifted shelf margin with
horst and graben structures developed. Condensed carbonate successions
are present on the horsts, whereas thick melanges of clastics,
conglomerates, and olistoliths occur in the troughs (Le Métour et al.,
1995). Volcanic rocks are present in two intervals. The lower one
consists of tuff and tuffites at the base of the carbonate suite,
whereas the younger interval (basalt, trachyandesite and rhyodacite) is
in the middle of the carbonate succession (Le Métour, 1987; Béchennec et
al., 1989).
In the Levant, transform faults controlled the coastline. Deep-water
carbonates (Karmia Formation) separated a western basement high (Helez
Uplift) from a narrow shelf on the northwestern edge of the Arabian
Plate (Hirsch et al., 1995). A NNE-trending transcurrent fault from the
area of the present-day Gulf of Aqaba appears to have predated the
Palmyra Trough. During the subsequent period of subsidence, the Amanous
shales were deposited. In central Syria, the Amanous is an intercalated
sandstone-argillite sequence containing rare plant fragments and some
algal limestones. Its has been dated by its foraminiferal and ostracode
content.
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Early Triassic: Scythian
(248.2–241.7 Ma) (Figure 4)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Sudair (Saudi Arabia,
United Arab Emirates, Oman), Mahil (Oman), Amanous (Jordan, Syria),
Beduh and Mirga Mir (Iraq) formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS
Tr10 to intra-Tr40]. The Arabian Plate persisted as a relatively
peneplaned ENE-sloping passive margin platform [AP6]. In the eastern
Mediterranean, faulting and rifting took place in the mid-Late Triassic,
and transform faults separated a narrow continental margin in the east
from a deep-water basin to the west. A rift splay branched off to the
northeast and created the Palmyra and Sinjar basins in a rift that
underwent thermal subsidence during the mid-Late Triassic and Jurassic.
Paleofacies
The facies pattern represents the mid-Scythian [c.Tr30 at 245 Ma]
conditions of the Arabian Plate. A pronounced sea-level lowstand at the
end of the Khuff deposition is expressed by a wide apron of coastal and
shallow-marine clastics around the stable landmass of the Arabian
Shield, and an even wider belt of shallow-marine silty shales (Sudair
Shale) on the Arabian Shelf. West of Riyadh, evaporates are associated
with shallow-marine shales (Le Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet, 1990). A
shallow-water carbonate platform with localized paper shale and
evaporites also occurred in the northern Gulf and Zagros Mountains areas
(Szabo and Kheradpir, 1978). In the Rub’ Al-Khali, gypsiferous shales
predominated (Sudair Formation) and gave way eastward to shallow-marine
carbonates (Mahil Formation of Oman). The eastern shelf-break remained
the flexure developed in the Late Permian Saih Hatat horst and graben
structures.
In the Levant, Hirsch (1991, 1992) described an Early Triassic
transgressive-regressive cycle that formed an alternating sequence of
shallow-marine sands containing plant remains, shales and marly
limestones (Yamin and Zafir formations) with a characteristic pelecypod
fauna of Pseudomonotis sp. (Claraia) and myophorids.
Hirsch interpreted this as an open-marine environment, typical of the
‘Werfen-type’ facies from the Austrian Alps. The same lithologies extend
into Jordan and Syria as the Amanous shales. Hirsch (1992) related the
two Scythian onlap cycles of the Yamin and Zafir formations to two
eustatic cycles and considers them as a probable response to a renewed
phase of Neo-Tethyan sea-floor spreading. The source of the clastic
influx during this time was probably from the Arabian-Nubian massif to
the southeast (Druckman, 1974). Hirsch compared the sands (Gevanim
Formation) with the Buntsandstein of the western Mediterranean. A
shallow-marine connection with the northern Zagros Basin probably
existed through the Palmyrid Trough.
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Middle Triassic: Anisian to
Ladinian (241.7–227.4 Ma) (Figure 5)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Jilh (Arabian Peninsula),
Gulailah (eastern Gulf) and Geli Khana (Iraq) formations, and their
regional equivalents [MFS Tr40 to intra-Tr60]. In general, the Middle
Triassic facies patterns in the Arabian Gulf region are a continuation
of those of the Early Triassic, accentuated by a Ladinian subsidence
event (Sharland et al., 2001).
Paleofacies
Along the western outcrop belt of Saudi Arabia, the Jilh Formation was
deposited as a continental to shoreline complex (Sharief, 1986).
Alluvial fans from the western uplands spilled over coastal lagoons onto
a platform that had restricted marine conditions (Le Nindre, Manivit and
Vaslet, 1990). Large evaporite salinas were formed in the area between
Kuwait and the southern Gulf. Southward toward the Rub’ Al-Khali Basin,
the evaporites grade into dolomitic mudstones and fine-grained clastics
of the Gulailah Formation. The pronounced input of sand from the
southwest relates to an earlier hinterland uplift. In the Zagros
foreland, the limestone/dolomite Geli Khana Formation consists of two
shoaling-upward cycles that each ended in emergence. Solution breccias
in the lower part of the Formation indicate once-present evaporites.
The area north of the Arabian Arch was relatively poor in siliciclastics.
The Hercynian horst and graben structures appear to have had only a
minor influence on the distribution of the evaporite flats in the
northern Gulf region. The Rutbah-Khleissia High was poorly defined, but
the presence of coastal to shallow-marine sands indicates the existence
of the Ha’il Arch.
The central and eastern Rub’ Al-Khali Basin was an area of restricted
deposition of shallow-marine shales and carbonates that grade distally
into shallow-marine platform dolomites. On the southeastern flank of the
Arabian Shield, a flood of siliciclastics was carried into the shallow
sea by a major fluvial system (Le Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet, 1990). The
clastic discharge took a northeasterly direction and may reflect the
buried horst/graben structure of the Central Arabian Arch.
In the Levant, platform carbonates (Ra’af and Saharonim formations) were
deposited (Hirsch, 1992) as an onlapping sequence of open-marine
Muschelkalk-type facies that existed until the end of the Ladinian. The
clastic-evaporitic, coastal to deltaic deposits of the Gevanim Formation
rimmed the northern edge of the Arabian Plate. Farther west, offshore
‘Alpine Muschelkalk’, and reefoid (Reifling-type) limestone indicate
open-marine environments by the occurrence of Daonella pelecypods,
ceratid ammonites and conodonts. In the Palmyra Trough, shallow-marine
shales and evaporites accumulated locally. Similar conditions seemed to
exist for the early Sinjar Trough.
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Late Triassic: Carnian to Norian
(227.4–209.6 Ma) (Figure 6)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Minjur (Arabian
Peninsula), Mulussa (Syria), Kurra Chine (Iraq), Dashtak (Iran)
formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS Tr60 to intra-J10].
These sediments were partly deposited during a second Triassic
infilling-subsidence event. The early Carnian ‘Saharan salinity crisis’
is a clear indication of a sea-level lowstand at 223 Ma.
Paleofacies
The most striking feature in the Gulf region is the continuation from
Middle Triassic times of the massive eastward spread across the Arabian
Arch of continental to deltaic clastics derived from the southern edge
of the Arabian Shield (Le Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet, 1990). The
clastics are a monotonous succession of light-colored, cross -bedded
sandstones with variegated shale intercalations and lenses of
conglomerates (lower Minjur Formation). These sediments represent
alluvial plain and, farther eastward, inundation-plain environments.
Ripple marks, mud cracks, sand-bar structures and features resembling
fossil dunes, were recognized by Powers et al. (1966) as littoral to
continental deposits. No marine fossils have been recorded, but several
forms of plants and wood debris were found that indicated a middle
Keuper flora of Carnian age similar to that of Central Europe.
Variegated gypsiferous shales occur throughout the section. An embayment
of inter- to infratidal sediments west of the Summan Horst and the
Dibdibah Trough possibly influenced its localization. The southernmost
extension of the embayment contained a marsh facies east of Buraidah (Le
Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet, 1990).
The Iranian Zagros region (Szabo and Kheradpir, 1978) was occupied by
shallow-marine carbonates, and multiple evaporite intervals occur in the
area northwest of the Qatar Arch. Szabo and Kheradpir (1978) and Koop
and Stoneley (1982) noted a marked erosional truncation of the Sefida
dolomite member in the Fars, central Arabian Gulf, and Qatar regions.
The Dashtak dolomite and evaporite sequence has been eroded in this
area, or may have changed facies across the Fars province. The Khaneh
Kat Formation is a shallow-water deposit with indications of
intermittent subaerial exposure surfaces, such as mud cracks,
stromatolites, and solution breccias, as well as light-colored
limestones containing gypsum pseudomorphs. The erosional surfaces
suggest paloekarst conditions that, accompanied by soil developments and
brecciation, indicate a series of hiatuses. In Iraq,the
limestone/dolomite/evaporite Kurra Chine Formation represents, like the
Middle Triassic Geli Khana, a succession of shoaling-upward,
shallow-water to inner-neritic, euxinic, to near-shore deposits.
Le Métour et al. (1995) reported that a second phase of Neo-Tethyan
extensional tectonics occurred in the eastern part of the Arabian
Platform during this period. This caused drowning of the northeastern
margin, and localized volcanic activity on the continental slope. This
second subsidence event had an important effect on the restructuring of
the Hawasina Basin and it is assumed that the basement of the Hawasina
Basin was thinned continental crust rather than oceanic crust (Le Métour
et al. 1995).
The northern and western parts of the Arabian Plate (Rutbah High and
Ha’il Arch), were exposed and a 200- to 300-km-wide shallow-marine
carbonate shelf surrounded the exposed Shield. Areas with tendencies for
preferential subsidence, such as the Sinjar and Palmyra troughs and the
Jordan Embayment (Harrat er Rujeila), accumulated large amounts of
evaporites (e.g. Mulussa Formation). The Palmyra Trough can be traced
westward into the Levant where it is offset by the present-day Dead Sea
Transform Fault.
Early in the Carnian, a very pronounced relative drop in sea level was
recorded throughout the circum-Mediterranean region. This ‘salinity
crisis’ (Hirsch, 1992) expressed itself in the epicontinental regions as
a typical lowstand evaporite sequence dominated by halite and sulfate
deposition, continental sands, marls and shales. Concurrent with the
opening of new Tethyan rift zones in the Eastern Mediterranean was the
deposition of pillow lavas (Asher volcanics), continental sands, and
deep-water radiolarites and Halobia-limestones. The facies and
faunal distribution in late Carnian to Rhaetian allowed the distinction
into continental platform and reef-bank and deeper-marine facies
(Hirsch, 1992, 1995). This type of lateral facies substitution extended
westward from the Arabian Plate toward the Helez uplift in the Levant.
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Figure Captions (Jurassic)
Click here for sequence of maps of Jurassic facies.
Figure 7: Paleofacies of the Triassic to Jurassic Transition. This time
period spanned the deposition of the upper Minjur, Mulussa, and Butmah
formations, and their regional equivalents [GSS J10]. Rocks of
Hettangian age are generally absent from much of the Arabian Plate as
are many of Rhaetian age. Erosion and non-depostion was caused by
structural uplift (onset of Mediterranean rifting) combined with a
lowstand in sea level. With information from: Andrews (1992a); Guiraud
et al. (2001); Hirsch and Picard (1988); Le Nindre, Manivit et al.
(1990); Le Métour et al. (1995); Murris (1980); Walley (2001).
Figure 8: Paleofacies of the Early Jurassic.
This time period spanned the deposition of the Mus, Marrat, Qamchuqa,
and Nirim formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS J10 to
intra-J20; the late Toarcian unconformity marks the base of
AP7 at 182 Ma].
The eastern Mediterranean opened during this period to create a new
passive margin. With information from: Andrews (1992a); Guiraud et al.
(2001); Hirsch and Picard (1988); Koop and Stoneley (1982); Le Nindre,
Manivit et al. (1990); Murris (1980); Ponikarov et al. (1966); Walley
(1998b, 2001); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 913
(W.J. Koop, 1982).
Figure 9: Paleofacies of the Middle Jurassic. This time period spanned
the deposition of the Izhara, Araej, and Dhruma formations, and their
regional equivalents [MFS J20 to intra-J40]. These sediments were
deposited in an open-marine environment, as the Arabian Plate now had
passive margins to Neo-Tethys to the northeast and north. With
information from: Andrews (1992a); Garfunkel (1998); Hirsch and Picard
(1988); Le Métour (1995); Le Nindre, Manivit et al. (1990); Murris
(1980); Walley (1998b); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous
Report 911 (M.A. Ziegler, 1982).
Figure 10: Paleofacies of the late Middle Jurassic. This time period
spanned the deposition of the upper Dhruma, Tuwaiq Mountain Limestone,
upper Araej, Hanifa, Naokelekan, and Surmeh formations, and their
regional equivalents [MFS J40 to J60]. Differential intraplate
subsidence led to the development of intrashelf basins on the Arabian
Plate. With information from: Andrews (1992a); Guiraud et al. (2001);
Hirsch and Picard (1988); Le Métour et al. (1995); Le Nindre, Manivit et
al. (1990b); Murris (1980); Walley (1998b); and unpublished Saudi Aramco
Miscellaneous Report 911 (M.A. Ziegler 1982) and 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
Figure 11: Paleofacies of the Late Jurassic.
This time period spanned the deposition of the Arab, Hith, and Gotnia
formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS J70 to K10; base of
AP8 is at 149 Ma]. Deposition of
vaporates was widespread. A new passive margin developed along the
southeastern coast of Oman following continental rifting and sea-floor
spreading between the Afro-Arabian and Indian plates. With information
from: Ellis et al. (1996); Guiraud et al. (2001); Hirsch and Picard
(1988); James and Wynd (1965); Koop and Stoneley (1982); Le Métour et
al. (1995); Le Nindre, Manivit et al. (1990b); Murris (1980); Ponikarov
et al. (1966); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 911
(M.A. Ziegler, 1982) and 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
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Triassic to Jurassic
Transition: Rhaetian to Hettangian (209.6–201.9 Ma)
(Figure 7)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the upper Minjur (Saudi
Arabia, United Arab Emirates), Mulussa (Syria), and Butmah (Iraq)
formations, and their regional equivalents [GSS J10]. Rocks of
Hettangian age are generally absent from much of the Arabian Plate as
are many of Rhaetian age. Erosion and non-deposition was caused by
structural uplift (onset of Mediterranean rifting) combined with a
lowstand in sea level.
Paleofacies
The Arabian Gulf region was still influenced by the central Arabian
horst and graben system. The northerly directed supply of deltaic to
coastal sands (Minjur) gave way to evaporitic, shallow-marine shales
(e.g. the Butmah Formation in Iraq and the Mulussa in Syria). The sands
were possibly derived from the southern edge of the Arabian Shield or,
more probably, supplied by meandering river systems from further
southwest in Yemen (Le Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet, 1990).
The facies distribution seems to have been controlled by deep-seated
tectonic lineaments that had been in existence since the Permian. To the
west, between the Arabian Shield and the horst and graben system, a
mixed facies of carbonates and shallow-marine shales was deposited in a
shallow-marine reentrant that probably corresponded to the Paleozoic
Widyan Basin (Al-Laboun, 1986). The marine shales mixed with spill-over
sands from a possible braided river system that drained the hinterland
to the south and southwest. At this location, about 100 km south of
Riyadh, ophiuroid remains were found (Le Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet,
1990; D. Vaslet, personal communication, 2000).
The top of the Hettangian is truncated and marks a stratigraphic gap
until the transgression of the lower to middle Toarcian [TST leading to
MFS J20]. The southern Qatar Arch was still exposed and upper Minjur
sands were eroded from its flanks. Laterally, a transition into shales
and mixed shelf carbonates (Neyriz Formation of Iran) took place (Murris,
1980).
The limestone sequence of the Cudi Group in southeastern Turkey has a
poorly defined age ranging from Late Triassic to Jurassic, and possibly
even Early Cretaceous. In general, the Hakkari area of easternmost
southeastern Turkey belongs to the transition from the peri-Gotnia Basin
to the Tethys. The succession starts with limestone/dolomite, passes up
through phases of exposure and intense weathering into agitated
shallow-marine, shelf-marginal carbonates. Arac and Yilmaz (1990) have
reported evidence of slumping from the edge of the Mardin shelf.
Hirsch and Picard (1988) and Hirsch (1992) discussed in detail the
transition from the Triassic to the Lower Jurassic in the Levant. The
contact between the Triassic and Liassic corresponds to the globally
recognized drop in sea level (Haq et al., 1988) that left large areas of
the eastern Mediterranean and Arabian Plate exposed to lateritic
weathering (Mishhor Formation of the Levant). In the Negev, deep
weathering and karstification of Upper Triassic rocks took place. At the
same time, basalts of the Asher volcanics were extruded in the Mount
Carmel area and are as much as 2,000 m thick at Atlit, 30 km south of
Haifa. According to Hirsch and Picard (1988), these basalts are related
to intracratonic fracturing that was probably associated with the
opening of the eastern Mediterranean. Garfunkel and Derin (1985)
attributed the volcanics to the rifting and opening of the Erez offshore
oceanic graben. From the middle Lias, a marine transgression occurred in
the Negev. It began with the deposition of paralic to deltaic sands that
passed laterally into gypsiferous lagoonal carbonates of the lower Nirim
Formation. Dark laminites and collapse breccias of the lower Kesrouane
Formation (Chouane dolomite member) occur in Lebanon (Walley, 1998b).
In Syria, shallow-marine carbonates containing dark, fetid limestones
and papery shales (Dolaa group) were deposited in the relic Palmyra
depression. The Zor Hauran Formation (Rhaetian) deposited around the
northern Rutbah High is the time-equivalent of the Mishhor Formation in
the Levant. The Mishhor is characterized by gypsiferous marls,
dolomites, and limestones that grade upward into conglomerates with
indurated ferruginous crusts. The ferruginous crusts indicate post-Rhaetic
emergence and soil formation (Buday, 1980), most likely due to a
eustatic fall in sea level (Haq et al., 1988).
The Rub’ Al-Khali Basin was filled for the most part by a sand-shale
sequence of the upper Minjur Formation. A thinly bedded dolomite-shale
succession, overlain by siltstones and argillaceous lime mudstones (the
Neyriz Formation in Iran), indicates deeper-marine conditions toward the
eastern Plate margin in the Zagros Fold belt. The sediments appear to be
almost devoid of macrofossils, but from regional correlation the
Formation is considered to be of Liassic age (James and Wynd, 1965).
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Early Jurassic: Sinemurian to
Aalenian (201.9–176.5 Ma) (Figure 8)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Mus (Iraq), Marrat
(Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates), Qamchuqa (Syria) and Nirim
(Levant) formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS J10 to
intra-J20; the late Toarcian unconformity marks the base of AP7 at 182
Ma]. The eastern Mediterranean opened during this period to create a new
passive margin.
Paleofacies
In the Arabian Gulf region, a reversal of the depositional pattern of
the Triassic to Jurassic transition occurred at this time. Where
previously there had been a structural uplift of the Arabian Arch
combined with a lowstand in sea level, there now appeared to have been
relaxation and the marked subsidence of the Summan Platform. The
pronounced northerly trend of the Platform and the observed facies
pattern suggest an underlying tectonic control that probably corresponds
to the Hercynian ‘basement grain’. These trends extend northward into
Iraq and toward the Plate margin. Argillaceous limestones and
shallow-marine shales were deposited, together with interbedded
vaporates (Alan, Mus and Adaiyah formations), on the edge of the
Mesopotamian (Gotnia?) Basin. South of the Arabian Arch, the lower
Marrat Formation changed from a carbonate to a clastic sequence and
appears to have been eroded in outcrop. In the Rub’ Al-Khali Basin, the
sandy Marrat is difficult to separate from the Late Triassic upper
Minjur clastics, although a significant hiatus—probably due to the
global Early Jurassic lowstand of Haq et al. (1988)—is likely to
separate them.
In the United Arab Emirates, the Marrat is a mixed facies of terrigenous
clastics and shallow-marine, peloidal to bioclastic limestones in its
lower part, and an upper sequence of interbedded micritic sandstones and
sandy limestones and dolomites. These sediments represent a slowly
deepening sedimentary sequence from flood plains, through tidal flats to
shallow-marine, and finally to deeper, quieter-water environments. This
sequence is the Hamlah Formation (Alsharhan, 1989). On the Qatar Arch
(by now only weakly expressed), the Hamlah or Marrat formations rest
unconformably on the Middle Triassic Jilh and Gulailah, probably as a
result of a global Early Jurassic lowstand (Haq et al., 1988).
In Oman, the long-lasting Sahtan group was a gradually shoaling
carbonate sequence that had a thin, basal transgressive succession of
mixed terrigenous clastics and carbonates of Pliensbachian age (Le
Nindre et al., in press). The lower Surmeh Formation of Iran is a
similarly ill-defined long-lasting sequence of massive to thick-bedded
crystalline dolomites that includes the basal Liassic Lithiotis (vaporates)
bed (James and Wynd, 1965).
In the southwestern quadrant of the Arabian Plate, erosional lows or
sags occur on a peneplaned topography. These depressions in southern
Yemen and the Hadramaut accumulated terrestrial and fluviatile
conglomerates and sands of the diachronous and transgressive Lower to
Middle Jurassic Kohlan Formation (Beydoun, 1997).
In southern Levant, the clastic upper Inmar Formation dominates the
central Negev and northern Sinai area. In Ramon, southwest of the Dead
Sea, cross -bedded sandstones, interbedded with kaolinitic, coaly, and
flinty clays, were deposited in deltaic to lower-estuarine environments
(Hirsch and Picard, 1988). Laterally, the sands pass into the shaly Rosh
Pinna subfacies and finally into the Nirim Formation. The Nirim is a
sequence of limestones, dolomites, and gypsum that is equivalent to the
thick and long-lasting Haifa or Kesrouane formations. According to
Hirsch (1992), the stacking of the various subfacies appears to reflect
repeated sea-level oscillations.
The Lower and Middle Jurassic rocks of Syria belong to the diachronous
Qamchuqa Formation that ranges in age from Sinemurian to mid-Oxfordian
in northwest Syria and from Toarcian to Callovian in eastern Syria. The
farther north and east, the later the marine transgression occurred. It
represents a shallow-shelf to protected lagoonal dolomitic
limestone/dolomite sequence (Alsharhan and Nairn, 1997) in a low-energy
environment. Interspersed vaporates occur, particularly in the Sinjar
area. Due to pronounced post-Jurassic erosion, no sediments younger than
Oxfordian are known from this area.
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Middle Jurassic: Bajocian to
Bathonian (176.5–164.4 Ma) (Figure 9)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Izhara (Qatar), Araej
(Qatar, United Arab Emirates) and Dhruma (Saudi Arabia) formations, and
their regional equivalents [MFS J20 to intra-J40]. These sediments were
deposited in an open-marine environment, as the Arabian Plate now had
passive margins to Neo-Tethys to the northeast and north.
Paleofacies
This time slice represents a phase of general sea level rise (Haq et
al., 1988) and with it the westward transgression of marine environments
far onto the Arabian Craton. Coastal and nearshore environments are
represented by coastal sands that pass eastward into shallow-marine
shales and then into shallow-marine detrital carbonates. Examples are
the Dhruma (Saudi Arabia, Oman), Izhara/Araej (Qatar and United Arab
Emirates), and the lower Surmeh (Iran) formations.
In Saudi Arabia, the area located over the Precambrian basement high at
the southwestern end of the Central Arabian Arch, began to undergo a
differentiated subsidence, as did the southern Summan horst-graben
tract, to form the Arabian Basin of Ayres et al. (1982). Subsidence
continued to collect shales and deeper-marine carbonates (‘Mid-Dhruma
shales’) [J20 at 175 Ma]. The eastward clastic discharge from the
hinterland seems to have been reduced and fed only the western Rub’ Al-Khali
Basin; minor run-offs were mapped by Le Nindre, Manivit and Vaslet
(1990) about 200 km northwest of Riyadh. The Arabian Basin and the
Gotnia Basin were separated by an approximately 100 km-wide sill (the
‘Rimthan Arch’) cross -cut by a set of N-trending Hercynian faults. A
northwesterly fault-trend appears to have vaporates the shape of the
Sargelu (Gotnia Province) basin-sill.
In Oman, the shallow-water limestones of the Middle to Late Jurassic
Sahtan Group were deposited in the eastern part of the Rub’ Al-Khali
Basin. The present-day shore of the Gulf of Oman, corresponds roughly to
the Middle Jurassic paleoslope that passed into the Al Ayn subbasin (Hawasina
Basin) off the continental margin (Cooper, 1990). The slope has a fringe
of submarine-fan sands.
In Yemen, incipient graben systems (with typical Najd alignment) began
to form and were filled with terrestrial sand/shale sequences of the
Kohlan Formation. Local limestone intercalations indicate a local
gradual shift from continental/littoral to transgressive, shallow-marine
environments. Ellis et al. (1996) interpreted the succession as a
prerift package.
A narrow marine shelf existed in the northwest of the Arabian Plate. It
was covered with shallow-water carbonates (Haifa Group) and with
deeper-water facies farther offshore. In Lebanon, the thick (1,500–2,000
m) cliff-forming limestones of the Kesrouane Formation form a prominent
morphological feature in the Mount Lebanon range (Walley, 1997). The
Formation was deposited in a middle- to outer-shelf depositional
environment. The interior of the former Palmyra Trough hosts the
Qamchuqa argillaceous limestones of the widespread Dolaa Group. North of
the Rutbah High, a connection through the future Euphrates-Anah Graben
might have existed to link up with the northern Mesopotamian sag (Sargelu
Formation) of van Bellen et al. (1959).
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Late Middle Jurassic: Callovian
to Oxfordian (164.4–154.1 Ma) (Figure 10)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the carbonate Upper Dhruma
and Tuwaiq Mountain Limestone of Saudi Arabia, the Upper Araej of the
Gulf (and equivalents in Lebanon), the clastic Hanifa, and Naokelekan
formations of the Gulf, Syria and Iraq, and the Surmeh dolomite of Iran
[MFS J40 to J60]. Differential intraplate subsidence led to the
development of intrashelf basins.
Paleofacies
Although a relative lowstand in sea level prevailed during most of this
time interval (Haq et al., 1988), widespread carbonate sediments
indicate a shallow-marine environment. Four intrashelf basins have been
identified in the southern Arabian Gulf (Rub’ Al Khali and Ras al Khaima
basins), central Arabia (Arabian Basin) and at the head of the Arabian
Gulf (the Gotnia Basin). The northward-trending extensions of the
Arabian Arch fault blocks penetrated the ‘Rimthan Arch’ and controlled
the architecture of the platform basins. Substantial amounts of
organic-rich source-rock shales, which formed under anoxic conditions,
accumulated in the basins. These are the rich source rocks analyzed by
Ayres et al. (1982) and Bordenave and Burwood (1990) (e.g. the Hanifa
and Naokelekan shales and the Diyab of Qatar and the southern Gulf).
The creation of these intrashelf basins appears to have been based on
rejuvenated N-trending Hercynian tectonic structures between the Arabian
and Gotnia basins. The southern Gulf Basin, however, was probably
vaporates by the Dibba fault zone. The ‘V’-shape of this basin partly
reflects the trend of the Arabian Arch (Rayn trend of Al-Husseini, 2000)
and partly that of the Dibba fault system.
The western platform between the Arabian Basin and the silty-shaly
coastal-fringe deposits was occupied by coral-algal and bioclastic lime
sand deposits. Clastic input derived from the southwestern hinterland
was still guided by the southern edge of the Arabian Shield toward the
Arabian Basin (LeNindre, Manivit and Vaslet, 1990). An unconformity at
the top of the Callovian Tuwaiq Mountain Limestone defined by hardground
and weathering phenomena, was overlain and onlapped by late Oxfordian
Hawtah shales at the base of the Hanifa Formation. A similar
relationship was described by Hirsch et al. (1995) for the eastern
Mediterranean.
Jurassic volcanic rocks from the Batinah coastal plain and Sumayni area
of eastern Oman are interpreted as a sign of tectonic instability caused
by the incipient breakaway of India and Madagascar along the eastern
margin of the Afro-Arabian Plate. Volcanic activity also occurred on the
continental slope of the Hamrat Duru Basin, where the Buwayfah Formation
(clayey, turbiditic calcarenite) is interbedded with alkaline basalt and
andesite (Le Métour et al., 1995). In the Late Jurassic to Early
Cretaceous, intermittent uplift, coincident with the easterly tilt of
the Oman plate margin, occurred due to incipient rifting and spreading
in the Indian Ocean, with continental separation occurring at the end of
the Jurassic (Loosveld et al, 1996).
During the Early Jurassic, extensional tectonism started in Yemen. The
developing troughs were characterized by shallow-marine carbonates of
the first marine transgression (transgressive system tract (TST) of
Toland et al., 1995). The J40 MFS of Sharland et al. (2001) occurs in
the upper part of the Shuqra Formation. The Formation is composed of
well-bedded, fossiliferous limestones with sand-shale intercalations.
This intracratonic rifting culminated during the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian-Tithonian).
In the Levant, the shallow-marine carbonate shelf at the eastern end of
the Mediterranean became markedly smaller, and a more abrupt transition
into the Pleshet Basin occurred. Here, the Haifa Formation shows the
development of bioherms containing corals and nerineid gastropods.
According to Hirsch and Picard (1988) and Hirsch et al. (1995), there is
evidence of a short-lived emergence at the end of the Callovian
(combined with widespread marine erosion) in eastern Lebanon (Mount
Hermon) and at the Djebel Maghara in Sinai (Al-Far, 1966). As a result,
sediments of middle and upper Callovian age are missing over large areas
and hardground and karstification mark the emergence (Buchbinder et al.,
1984). Transgressive shales of the early Oxfordian Kidod Formation, and
equivalents, overlie this surface. Late Oxfordian vitreous tuffs (Devorah
volcanics) occur on eastern Mount Carmel. Walley (2001) reported
extensive late Oxfordian to Barremian block-faulting and alkali-basalt
magmatism in Lebanon. Shelf carbonate deposition (Kesrouane Formation)
ended at this time.
At the northern extremity of the Arabian Plate, a shallow seaway joined
the eastern Mediterranean with the northern extension of the Gotnia
Basin. The Qamchuqa Formation was deposited here as an alternating
sequence of shallow-marine shales and limestones. The deposition
represented a gradation from open-marine massive limestones on the
Levant coast, to a restricted oncolithic and micritic interior shelf
facies (Haifa Formation).
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Late Jurassic: Kimmeridgian to
Tithonian (154.1–144 Ma) (Figure 11)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Arab and Hith (Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates) and Gotnia (Iraq, Kuwait)
formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS J70 to K10; base of AP8
at 149 Ma]. Deposition of vaporates was widespread. According to
Sharland et al. (2001), the base of AP8 corresponds to a plate-wide
late-Jurassic unconformity. A new passive margin developed along the
southeastern coast of Oman following continental rifting and sea-floor
spreading between the Afro-Arabian and Indian plates.
Paleofacies
This time interval corresponded to an overall progressive rise in sea
level, and a corresponding widespread deposition of predominantly
shallow-marine carbonates. With apparent regularity, shoaling-upward
cycles formed a complex system of infratidal carbonates to arid,
supratidal vaporates. These cycles represent the Arab Formation, with
its four Members (A to D), and the capping Hith Anhydrite. A dashed line
on Figure 11 indicates the extent of the Hith Anhydrite, which was the
last and most widespread anhydrite unit. Shales for the most part
replaced coastal clastics along the margin of the Arabian Shield.
Shallow, subtidal oolitic and peloidal, and algal and stromatolithic
carbonate/evaporite rhythmites were deposited on a regional scale.
The sediment types and distribution indicate a Bahamas-type depositional
model. In such a model, shelf margins with high-energy regimes allowed
for the production of calcarenites, whereas protected shelfs with
pellet-grapestone sediments were associated with algal mats and the
creation of spreading islands. These in turn accommodated beaches, tidal
and evaporite flats, and other coastal environments. Alternatively, a
model of brine concentration in an epeiric sea is possible. The
shoaling-upward cycles show strong sulfate replacements that have
totally obliterated the depositional textures in some places. Relic
textures indicate typical shallow-marine shelf carbonates.
The Arabian and southern Gulf basins with partly anoxic biotopes (Hanifa
shales) still existed, but appear to have been filled-in progressively
by actively prograding, interior shelf-edge calcarenites. The prograding
units downlap into the Arabian Basin and change facies to argillaceous,
deep-water deposits. The edge of the Arabian Basin was intensely
dolomitized and locally shows evidence of subaerial exposure (karstification
and brecciation) with geopetally arranged, internal silt deposits. These
marked hiatus surfaces were formed during the late Tithonian. Canyons
were incised along the Levant coast during this sea-level lowstand
(Hirsch, 1991).
In the Rimthan field on the northern extension of the Summan Platform,
numerous stacked erosional surfaces and algal mats and crusts are
present (M.A. Ziegler, unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report
911, 1982). Similar features are known from the Saudi offshore area
around the Marjan field. On the Fuwaris trend there is pervasive
dolomitization up to 1,000 m thick. It is likely that this diagenetic
process in near-subaerial conditions occurred close to the major
sequence boundary either at end Rayazanian or end Portlandian (Malm) (Haq
et al., 1988). This corresponded to uplift relating to continental
rifting and sea-floor spreading.
South of the ‘Gotnia Rim’, four shoaling cycles of interbedded
calcarenite and anhydrite units developed. They are the A to D Members
of the Arab Formation. Throughout the 250-km-wide Arabian Basin, they
show a remarkably uniform development in fabric and thickness. The
facies change across the Gotnia margin to shale-sulfate-halite
rhythmites appears to correlate with the southern carbonate-evaporite
cycles of the Arabian basin. The overlying Hith Anhydrite is thickest in
the Arabian Basin. It thins northward into the Gotnia Basin where
organic-rich, argillaceous, thinly bedded micritic limestones overlie
the vaporates. It is probable that this lithofacies was deposited in a
shallow, protected marine environment that was undergoing slow but
continuous subsidence.
Detailed spectrochemical correlations in various transects from the
Arabian Basin into the Gotnia domain revealed that the Tuwaiq Mountain
Limestone is progressively missing northward, and even the Dhruma
Formation has been markedly truncated with about 300 m of section
missing (M.A. Ziegler, unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report
911, 1982).
Sadooni (1997) reported a wide areal distribution of the Najmah
Formation into Iraq, markedly farther than the general Cretaceous
ersosional limit. He suggested that the reactivation of basement faults
during the Late Jurassic was responsible for widespread erosion and
associated diagenesis. Solution porosities in the southern Gotnia
subbasin suggest postdepositional exposure. Shallow-water carbonates of
the Formation in the Ribyan field show well-developed columnar
stromatolites attached to reworked, angular pebbles of calcarenitic
limestone containing rare Mangashtia viennoti Henson. These
foraminifera have an age range of upper Oxfordian to lower Kimmeridgian
and are diagnostic of the upper Hanifa Formation. The base of the
overlying evaporite/halite sequence in the Gotnia intrashelf basin can
therefore be dated as post-Hanifa.
The active hinge line that controlled the truncation may be located on
the northern dip of the Summan Platform, near the Rimthan and Uhayrish
fields in Saudi Arabia. The fault alignment relates to the Najd fault
system and seems to correspond approximately to the Abu Jir Fault Zone
of Iraq. It appears that the Abu Jifan trend has been affected by the
N-trending Summan Platform lineament (M.A. Ziegler, unpublished Saudi
Aramco Miscellaneous Reports 896 and 911, 1980, 1982). Similar fault
interference patterns for central Arabia and the Gulf coast in the
Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Partitioned Neutral Zone were suggested by Christian
(1997) in the framework of the regional Cretaceous structure. Milner
(1998) recognized comparable trends that provide the structural
framework for the distribution of source rocks in the southern part of
the Arabian Plate.
In offshore Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, four halite cycles are recognized.
The lowest salt layer appears to model the northern extension of the
‘Khafji Graben’ and the eastern boundary of the Gotnia Evaporite
Province. The westerly salt pod follows the trend of the ‘Minagish
Graben’ that is located between the Summan Platform and the Burgan
trend. The half-grabens are shown on the pre-Unayzah (Upper
Carboniferous to Lower Permian) subcrop map of McGillivray and Husseini
(1992). The youngest Paleozoic strata within them are of Devonian age.
Al-Husseini (2000) related the underlying basement grain to structures
within the Rayn microplate that were caused by the Amar collision during
the late Precambrian.
Yousif and Nouman (1997) have recorded a similar salt distribution for
onshore Kuwait. They located the onlap/downlap of the basal and second
salt layer from the west against the Burgan Arch. Along the southern rim
of the Gotnia, the remaining upper three salt layers can be correlated
across the head of the Gulf. The well-defined cycles typically show
repeating couplets commencing with fetid paper shales [high-frequency
MFS of Sharland et al., 2001], followed upward by nodular anhydrite that
gives way to pure halite before reverting to nodular anhydrite. The next
cycle begins with paper shales. This kind of sequence repeats itself
three times over the entire southern Gotnia Basin, and four times in the
eastern and western parts of the southern basin (M.A. Ziegler,
unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 911, 1982). The salt
distribution in the basin appears to be extremely fine-tuned with
respect to the Hercynian lineaments branching out from the Arabian Arch.
It is possible that distant plate motions may have reactivated
fault-bounded rift blocks that locally appear to have undergone minor
uplift and erosion, or tilting, in order to create local intrashelf
basins or troughs. Pratt and Smewing (1993a,b) envisage these tectonic
influences to be responsible for the flexing and blockfaulting of the
eastern margin of the Arabian Plate. A general westward tilt of the
Plate, as suggested by Murris (1980), could have triggered these events.
In view of the basement grain, as indicated by Al-Husseini (2000), a
complementary interaction of the Rayn, Batin and Abu Jifan fault sets
may have occurred.
It seems probable that the marine replenishment of this ‘sink’ was from
the Neo-Tethys to the north. This contrasts with Al-Husseini’s (1997)
suggestion of a water source to the east, with increasing brine
concentrations in a westerly direction toward the Gotnia sedimentary
province, (or away from the Neo-Tethys). It appears that the Arabian
basin was filled-in rapidly by organic detritus and shelf-marginal
calcarenite wedges (clinoforms) that produced the prolific Middle
Eastern oil reservoir facies of the Hanifa, Jubaila, Arab and Manifa
formations. Most of them prograde and wedge-out into the Arabian and
Rub’ Al-Khali basins, or at least thin out (downlap) markedly toward
their centers.
In Oman, the NE-trending Dibba Fault clearly separates the western Gulf
province from the complexly structured margin of the Hamrat Duru and
Umar basins to the southeast. Here, high-energy, well-oxygenated
sediments such as reefs and detrital calcarenites, characterize the
plate margin. Various types of debris flows covered the continental
slopes of Neo-Tethys, typically majolica facies with tintinnids and
radiolarian cherts, and Cooper (1990) recorded exotic limestones. The
widespread occurrence of conglomerates in Oman at the end of the
Jurassic indicates a regional destabilization of the shelf edge
associated with the rifting of India from Arabia. With a possibly still
moderately rising sea level, the rapid drowning of the northeast
platform seems to have outpaced the vertical carbonate production and
led to the accumulation of deeper-water, mud-dominated, chert-rich
facies.
In Yemen, the synrift graben systems contain anoxic shales and vaporates
that are comparable with the eastern shelf of the Arabian Plate. The
greatest marine constriction seems to have occurred in the Marib-Shabwa
Basin (Madbi Formation) and to a lesser degree in the Sayun-Masila
Basin. Normal marine carbonates (Nayfa Formation) are present in the
easternmost Jeza-Qamar Basin, which appears to have been a prerift sag (Redfern
et al., 1995; Ellis et al., 1996; and Beydoun, 1997).
In the Levant and eastern Mediterranean region, intensive uplift,
rifting, and volcanism correspond to the top of AP7 (Sharland et al.,
2001) at 149 Ma (Tithonian). The earlier Jurassic paleogeographic
pattern of highs and lows in the Negev and northern Levant was replaced
by the Pleshet Basin (Cohen et al., 1988). This event subdivided the
Levant region into a structured shelf with numerous fault blocks,
generally parallel to the Mediterranean plate margin. Cohen et al.
(1988) differentiated the plate margin in the following manner:
1. a western platform province along the Gevar-Am trough, related to the
Pleshet Basin (subsiding
along the present-day Levant coastline); and
2. an eastern platform province on the margin of the exposed and eroding
Arabian-Nubian massif.
Fault activity is marked by ‘Tayasir’ volcanics (vitreous tuffs) at
Devorah (Hirsch and Picard, 1988). In Syria, a shallow seaway connected
the Syrian Platform with the Gotnia Basin to the southeast between the
Aleppo High (Mardin Shelf) and the Rutbah High. Along its western margin
were deposited mainly shales (Qamchuqa Formation) and terrigenous sands.
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Figure Captions
(Cretaceous)
Click here for sequence of maps of Cretaceous facies.
Figure 12: Paleofacies of the earliest Cretaceous spanning the
deposition of the Yamama, Minagish, Habshan, and Rayda formations, and
their regional equivalents [MFS intra-K20 to intra-K40]. Relatively
continuous sedimentation took place in Oman but most other parts of the
Arabian Plate were affected by a late Valangian unconformity. Sediments
were deposited on open platforms and within intrashelf basins of the
Arabian Plate. With information from: Béchennec et al. (1989); Ellis et
al. (1996); Hirsch (1990); James and Wynd (1965); Le Métour et al.
(1995); Murris (1980); Sawaf and Tarek (1996); Walley (1998b, 2001); and
unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 911 (M.A. Ziegler, 1982)
and 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
Figure 13: Paleofacies of the Early Cretaceous. This time period spanned
the deposition of the Aarda, Zubair, Buwaib, Biyadh, Lekhwair, and
Kharaib formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS K40 to
intra-K70]. Sediments were deposited in shallow-marine shelf and
intrashelf settings on the Arabian Plate passive margin with Neo-Tethys,
and were influenced by the strong clastic sediment supply of the Zubair
delta to the west. With information from: Andrews (1992b); Ellis et al.
(1996); Guiraud et al. (2001); Hirsch (1990); Holden and Kerr (1997);
Koop and Stoneley (1982); Murris (1980); Ponikarov, et al. (1966); Roger
et al. (1998); Sawaf et al. (2001); Walley (1998b); and unpublished
Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 826 (D.W. Hagen, 1975), 849 and 911
(M.A. Ziegler, 1976, 1982).
Figure 14: Paleofacies of the late Early Cretaceous spanning deposition
of the Shu’aiba, Biyadh, Nahr Umr, Burgan, and Kazhdumi formations,
and their regional equivalents [MFS K70 to intra-K120]. A marked
late-Aptian regional unconformity and sedimentary hiatus separates rocks
of Aptian age (e.g. Shu’aiba Formation) from those of Albian age (e.g.
Nahr Umr). Well-defined salt domes in the southern Gulf are attributed
to halokinetic movements of the Precambrian Hormuz Salt due to
structural reactivation. With information from: Andrews (1992b); Guiraud
et al. (2001); Hirsch (1990); Holden and Kerr (1997); Koop and Stoneley
(1982); Le Métour et al. (1995); Lutfi (1996); Murris (1980); Pascoe et
al. (1995); Roger et al. (1989); Sawaf and Tarek (1996); and unpublished
Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982), 826 (D.W.
Hagen, 1975), 849 and 911 (M.A. Ziegler, 1976, 1982). R=Rudist reefs.
Figure 15: Paleofacies of the early Late
Cretaceous spanning deposition of the Mishrif, Ahmadi, Rumaila, Natih,
and Derdere formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS K120 to
intra-K150; base of AP9 dated at 92 Ma].
Sediments were deposited on platforms and within intrashelf basins on
the passive margin of the Arabian Plate. With information from: Andrews
(1992b); Azzam (1995); Béchennec et al. (1995); Bender (1968); Burchette
(1993); Cater and Gillcrist (1994); Guiraud et al. (2001); Hirsch
(1990); Le Métour et al. (1995); Makhlouf et al. (1996); Murris (1980);
Ponikarov et al. (1988); Roger (1989); Walley (1998b); and unpublished
Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 826 (D.W. Hagen, 1975). R=Rudist
reefs.
Figure 16: Paleofacies of the Late Cretaceous to Early Paleocene
spanning deposition of the Shiranish, Gurpi, Aruma, Simsima, and Fiqa
formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS K150 to intra-Pg10]. The
sediments were deposited within a compressive foreland basin setting
following onset of mid-Turonian ophiolite obduction along the eastern
margin of the Plate. With information from: Andrews (1992b); Azzam
(1995); Béchennec et al. (1995); Cater and Gillcrist (1994); Ellis et
al. (1996); Filbrandt et al. (1990); Gilmour and Mäkel (1996); Guiraud
and Bosworth (1997); Hirsch (1990); Koop and Stoneley (1982); Litak et
al. (1997); Murris (1980); Nolan et al. (1990); Ponikarov et al. (1966);
de Ruiter and Lovelock (1995); Roger et al. (1989); Sawaf and Tarek
(1996); Walley (1998b); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous
Report 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
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Very Early Cretaceous:
Berriasian to Valanginian (144–132 Ma) (Figure
12)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Yamama, Minagish, Habshan,
and Rayda formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS intra-K20 to
intra-K40]. Relatively continuous sedimentation took place in Oman, but
most other parts of the Arabian Plate were affected by a late Valangian
unconformity. Al-Fares et al. (1998) related a major sedimentary hiatus
of Valanginian to early Hauterivian age in offshore Kuwait to far-field
stresses induced by the opening of the South Atlantic that may have
reactivated older structures. The sediments were deposited on open
platforms and within intrashelf basins of the Arabian Plate that was
surrounded to the north, east, and south by passive margins with Neo-Tethys.
They correspond to the first Early Cretaceous second-order depositional
sequence of Sharland et al. (2001).
Paleofacies
This interval is characterized by a moderately high, but falling,
eustatic sea level (Haq et al., 1988). The eastern shelf platform of the
Arabian Plate was covered by shallow-water carbonates Yamama, Minagish,
and Habshan formations), with the exception of the areas of the former
Gotnia Province and the residual Arabian Basin, where argillaceous
limestones of the Sulaiy/Makhul formations were deposited. However, from
the flanks of the now actively subsiding Gotnia Trough, shallow-water
pelletal and peloidal, mainly mud-supported limestones, prograde into
the basin eastward and accumulated as the Ratawi Formation reservoir
rock.
In the north of the Arabian Plate, a terrigenous, sand-dominated
environment is suggestive of active uplifting, rifting, and volcanism (Tayasir
Volcanics). West of the present-day coastline of the Levant, the Pleshet
Basin opened through the subsidence of the northerly oriented Gevar-Am
trough, which collected mainly clastic sediments. The source of the
Helez sandstones was the land masses to the southeast, as well as a
western basement high possibly on an old rift shoulder (Rosenfeld et
al., 1998), about 50 km offshore from the present coastline.
A possible marine connection might have existed across Syria between the
eastern Mediterranean and northern Iraq where sediments indicate
shallow-marine to shoreline and coastal environments. In eastern Iraq
and adjacent Iran, a similar alternating shale-limestone sequence is
present (the Gadvan Formation of Iran). The shale facies indicate
somewhat deeper-water intrashelf conditions with a normal marine fauna
containing abundant crinoids and echinoids. These rocks appear to grade
laterally into the long-lasting Garau Formation (Early Cretaceous to
Coniacian) that consists of gray-black carbonaceous shales and
argillaceous limestones. The occurrence of a radiolarian fauna and
planktonic foraminifera indicate the proximity of deep, open-marine
conditions adjacent to Neo-Tethys farther to the north and east.
The northern Rub’ Al-Khali/Ras al Khaimah Basin appears to have lost its
former expression as a result of infill by shelf carbonates and
evaporites. Pratt and Smewing (1993a,b) suggest the occurrence of Late
Jurassic block faulting along the northeastern Oman plate margin.
Variable rates of thermal subsidence and tranpressive forces were
translated onto this margin by oceanic plates in the Neo-Tethys. These
forces caused local minor uplift and erosion. With the termination of
this stress regime, the Hamrat Duru Basin came into existence as a large
downwarp. The platform sediments of the Arabian Plate withdrew
southwestward and pelagic-type sediments uniformably covered the old
continental slope and the drowned plate margin (Le Métour et al., 1995).
The clastic source was pushed back southwestward, so that an essentially
pelagic sediment regime covered both the old continental slope and the
Hamrat Duru Basin. In the proximal parts of the Basin, the turbiditic
succession of the Guwyza Formation is covered by radiolarian chert and
silicified micrites of the lower Sid’r Formation and by Wahrah
radiolarian chert.
In the interior of Oman, the Middle to Late Jurassic shallow-water
limestones of the Sahtan Group are overlain unconformably by
thin-bedded, cherty lime mudstones of the Rayda Formation. The Rayda
represents a deep-marine facies and contains pelagic microfossils, such
as silicisponges, radiolarians, and saccocoma (crinoid) ossicles. This
porcellanitic limestone extends across central Oman, into the eastern
United Arab Emirates, and as far north as the eastern Musandam
Peninsula.
In the Hawasina Basin of northeastern Oman, cherty sediments
characterize the sequence from Tithonian through Hauterivian. However,
the Hamrat Duru Basin with a high carbonate generation rate contains
hemipelagic limestones, whereas radiolarian cherts prevail predominantly
in the proximal, shale-rich Al Ayn subbasin and the distal Duru subbasin
(Cooper, 1990). The flanking platform of the Al Ayn sag had mainly
shallow-shelf environments with reefs, winnowed oolitic and peloidal
grain-limestone belts, and a lagoonal to platform interior environment
with mud-supported lithologies (Alsharan and Nairn, 1997).
In Yemen and southern Oman, tectonic stresses caused not only flexuring
and drowning of the Jurassic platform but also uplift, such as the North
Hadramaut Arch. A shallow-marine carbonate province developed in the
Say’un-Masila and Jeza-Qamar basins whereas the Marib-Shabwa Basin
appears to have been more isolated from marine circulation. It
accumulated predominantly shallow- to transitional-marine shales (Azab
Formation) and terrigenous sands (Harshiyat Formation). The Naifa
Formation in the Jeza-Qamar Basin is an important source rock
(Richardson et al., 1995).
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Early Cretaceous: Hauterivian to
Barremian (132–121 Ma) (Figure 13)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Aarda (Jordan), Zubair,
Buwaib, and Biyadh (Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia), and Lekhwair, and
Kharaib (United Arab Emirates, Oman) formations, and their regional
equivalents [MFS K40 to intra-K70]. It was a period of low sea levels
with minor subcycles and a later moderate rise of the sea (Haq et al., 1988). Sediments were
deposited in shallow-marine shelf and intrashelf settings on the Arabian
Plate passive margin with Neo-Tethys, and were influenced by the strong
clastic sediment supply from the Zubair delta to the west.
Paleofacies
In the Levant, extensive freshwater (‘Wealden facies’) and continental
deposits, interbedded with Tayasir basaltic volcanics, are reported by
Rosenfeld et al. (1998) for the Negev, Galilee High and Mount Lebanon
area (Walley, 1998b). This indicates a clear uplift of the northwestern
plate margin concurrent with a marked marine regression. Offshore in the
Gevar-Am Trough are deeper-marine shales and pelitic to chalky sediments
of the Talme Yafe and Abeih formations.
The northern part of the Arabian Plate was covered by shallow-marine
shales and occasional evaporite sabkhas and salinas of the Areban,
Cherrife, and Mdarej formations (Syria, Iraq) and of the lower Mardin
Group of southeast Turkey. The interior-shelf, coastal-fringe shales
grade northeastward toward the plate margin into sandy limestones, which
by their faunal content (algae, oncoids and oysters) indicate some
restriction in marine circulation.
The wider Gulf Basin was fringed toward the Arabian Shield by an
extensive transgressive sand-shale apron of the Biyadh, Buwaib, and
Zubair formations. The lateral transition illustrates a gradual change
from continental fluvial systems, through shallow-marine sandbars and
subtidal shales to a carbonate ramp system farther offshore. West of the
N-trending Dibdibah Trough, a shallow-marine embayment resulting from
carbonate suppression may explain the nannofossil finds about 150 km
northeast of Buraydah (Le Nindre, Manivit et al., 1990).
The Gotnia Basin contains about 800 m of dark, deep-marine shales and
fine-grained cherty limestones of the Balambo and Garau formations (van
Bellen et al., 1959; James and Wynd, 1965). In contrast, shallow-marine
Fahliyan limestones composed of oolitic, pelletal and brecciated
calcarenites, formed a shallow shoal passage from the Fars province of
Iran to the Ras al Khaima Basin in the southern Gulf and United Arab
Emirates. The Basin is marked by a predominantly deeper-marine,
fine-grained argillaceous mudstone, with pelletal, bioclastic lime
packstones in Qatar (Lekhwair Formation overlain by Kharaib Formation).
In offshore Abu Dhabi, Boichard et al. (1995) described a micrite
sequence interspersed with peloidal to rudistid grainstones that they
attributed to a broad carbonate-ramp setting. The depositional
environment appears to have alternated between an inner-outer,
proximal-outer, to deep-outer ramp conditions. The rudistid Thamama
zones II and IIIA of the Kharaib Formation indicate general shoaling
phases reflecting an inner-ramp environment.
In the south of the Arabian Plate are located the large positive
structures of the Hoowarin-Hazar High in northern Hadramaut and the
Dhofar High in Oman. Shoreline and shallow-marine clastics fringe the
structures. In Yemen, the two eastern basins of Sayun-Masila and
Jeza-Qamar belong to the shallow-marine setting (Qishn Formation),
whereas the Marib-Shabwa Basin appears to have been an isolated basin in
which lacustrine sediments of the Saar Formation accumulated.
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Late Early Cretaceous: Aptian
to Albian (121–98.9) (Figure 14)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Shu’aiba, Biyadh, Nahr
Umr, and Burgan (Arabian Penninsula), and Kazhdumi (Iraq, Iran)
formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS K70 to intra-K120]. A
marked late-Aptian regional unconformity and sedimentary hiatus
separates rocks of Aptian age (e.g. Shu’aiba Formation) from those of
Albian age (e.g. Nahr Umr). This break probably coincided with a
worldwide lowstand in sea level (Haq et al., 1988) and was followed by a
gradually rising sea level that culminated in maximum flooding by end
Albian [K110 MFS at 101 Ma]. Al-Fares et al. (1998) interpreted the pre-Albian
disconformity as the result of far-field stress consequent on the
opening of the central Atlantic Ocean. This caused uplift of the western
part of the Arabian Craton and the shedding of deltaic sands and
transitional marine clastics from the west and southwest. Well-defined
salt domes in the southern Gulf are attributed to halokinetic movements
of the Precambrian Hormuz salt and evaporites that began with salt
pillowing in the late Aptian-Albian due to structural reactivation.
Paleofacies
The transgressive Albian deposits reflect a rise in sea level. The
gradually rising sea level that followed the pre-Albian unconformity
caused the oscillating deposition of shale and carbonate. In general, by
late Albian times, the Arabian Platform was widely inundated by shallow
seas in which were deposited shallow- to progressively deeper-marine
carbonates in various subbasins around the plate margin. These are as
follows:
1. The shallow Palmyra intrashelf basin in the north;
2. The Lurestan intrashelf basin, east of Baghdad;
3. The Khuzestan intrashelf basin, east of Basra;
4. The Rub’ Al-Khali, Ras al Khaimah and Fars intrashelf basins in the
southern Gulf;
5. The Jeza-Qamar intrashelf basin of eastern Yemen (Hadramaut).
Dark organic-rich shales and argillaceous limestones of the Kazhdumi and
Balambo formations characterize the eastern plate intrashelf basins of
Iraq and Iran. The presence of ammonites and a
foraminiferal-oligosteginid fauna indicate a deeper-marine depositional
setting and connection with Neo-Tethys.
Shallow-water platform limestones with fringing rudist reefs are present
along the hinge line of the eastern Mediterranean shelf margin (Bein,
1976). Westward, the platform sediments pass rapidly into thick,
fine-grained slope and cherty basinal facies. The platforms that
separate the various intrashelf basins are the sites of shallow-water
carbonate deposition (e.g. the Sarvak Formation of Iran). These
bioclastic skeletal lime grainstones are the ‘rudist limestones’ of
James and Wynd (1965). In part, they are composed of rudistid banks
(reefs) and aprons of large-scale, cross -bedded bioclastic debris and
brecciated limestones.
Hughes (2000) subdivided the early Aptian Shu’aiba Formation of the
Shaybah field of Saudi Arabia. He recognized three stacked units on the
basis of distinct micro- and macro-biofacies. The Shu’aiba, at a
location in the southern Rub’ Al-Khali Basin, evolved from a moderately
deep-water platform into a rudist-rimmed plateau that may be a spur of
the Dibba Fault of Oman. The distinct biofacies belts allow subdivision
into an open marine/basinal environment, followed by platform-rimming
rudist banks, and finally back-bank to lagoonal environments. The
lagoons are indicated by the presence of dasyclad algae and encrusting
Lithocodium sp. aggregates. The tripartite vertical sequence
consists of an early unsculptured, shallow-marine platform at the base,
adjacent to open-marine conditions. In the middle Shu’aiba, rudist
mounds began to thrive [MFS K80], and the upper part shows a general
tendency toward shoaling and a spread of lagoonal biofacies that may be
suggestive of a sequence boundary [MFS K90]. The basinal shoals and
internal paleoshelf margins hosted Shu’aiba rudistid banks. Their
various skeletal and grain-supported textures provide excellent primary
and secondary porous reservoir lithologies.
In the Shaybah field, the Shu’aiba Formation shows signs of weathering
with deep invasion of late Aptian Nahr Umr shales into the carbonate
reservoirs (M.A. Ziegler, unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report
849, 1976; Hughes, 2000). At outcrop in Saudi Arabia, Aptian
sedimentation ends with the Sallah Member of the Biyadh Formation. This
shallow-marine sand-shale represents a maximum flooding event that is
dated by a late Aptian ammonite discovery near Riyadh (Le Nindre,
Manivit et al., 1990). The marine ingression onto the Arabian Shield
suggests that the Hercynian structures of the Arabian Arch allowed a
narrow seaway to extend far across the Arabian Plate. The top of the
Biyadh Formation was exposed and weathered during the Albian and
lateritic clay and bauxite developed, as at Az Zabirah north of Buraydah
in central Saudi Arabia (Le Nindre, Manivit et al., 1990; Collenette and
Grainger, 1994).
Over the Arabian Arch, continental sands and conglomerates (Biyadh
Formation in Saudi Arabia) gave way northward to littoral and
shallow-marine environments in Kuwait. There, the Early Cretaceous
Aptian sands (Zubair Formation) are fine grained with intercalated
shales, and the later Albian Burgan sands are typical of deposition in a
littoral to delta-front setting. It appears that the former N-trending
Hercynian grain was directing the sediment discharge as far north as
southern Iraq, where delta distributaries took on a northeasterly
direction (Al-Fares et al., 1998) that may be related to the former
Batin Fault lineament (Al-Husseini, 2000).
Fluviatile and continental sands of the upper Kurnub Group occur in the
vicinity of the Rutbah High. In the interior of the Arabian Plate,
Andrews (1992b) described poorly dated fluviodeltaic environments in
southeastern Jordan, typified by freshwater algae and coaly, wood
fragments, that indicate deposition close to shore. Similar continental
environments appear to have existed in the Al Jawf region of northern
Saudi Arabia.
Along the eastern plate margin, as far as the southern Gulf region,
organic-rich Kazhdumi shales were deposited. They contain subordinate
argillaceous limestone beds that have an open-marine basinal biota of
planktonic foraminifera, radiolarians, and sponge spicules (James and
Wynd, 1965). Southward, the Fars intrashelf basin extended into the
lobate intracratonic Rub’ Al-Khali Basin whose filling is of an
open-marine, off-bank nature containing planktonic foraminifera (Hedbergella
ssp.) and skeletal debris that fines away from the bank/fore-bank
sediment source areas (Hughes, 2000).
The Hoowarin-Hazar Ridge of Yemen and the southern Rub’ Al-Khali is a
prominent feature conspicuously aligned with the Dibba Fault. It shed
clastics into the Rub’ Al-Khali Basin as far as the southern United Arab
Emirates (Pascoe et al., 1995). The shelf east of Hoowarin was a marly
orbitolinid carbonate platform with numerous rudist patch reefs (Kharaib
Formation). The rift troughs in Yemen had, for the most part, ceased to
exist by this time. Only the easternmost Jeza-Qamar Basin was still in
existence as shown by the deposition of deep-marine carbonates of the
Qishn (Fartaq) Formation.
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Early Late Cretaceous:
Cenomanian to Turonian (98.9–89 Ma (Figure
15)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Mishrif, Ahmadi, and
Rumaila (Arabian Peninsula), Natih (Oman), and Derdere (SE Turkey)
formations, and their regional equivalents [MFS K120 to intra-K150; base
of AP9 dated at 92 Ma]. Base AP9 corresponds to the Plate-wide mid-Turonian
unconformity resulting from the start of ophiolite obduction along the
eastern margin of the Arabian Plate. The sediments were deposited on
platforms and within intrashelf basins on the passive margin of the
Plate.
Paleofacies
A maximum global coastal onlap for this time interval has been proposed
by Haq et al. (1988) and, in Arabia, the sedimentary record indicates
the presence of widespread shallow-marine platform carbonates (Mishrif
Formation). The repetitive interbedding of limestones with silty shales
and shales (Rumaila, Ahmadi, and Natih formations of the Wasia Formation
of Saudi Arabia) indicate a reduced input of terrigenous clastics from
the hinterland to the west. Generally, the succession becomes pure
limestone toward the late Cenomanian (e.g. Mishrif Formation). Detrital
limestones with rudistid remains and coralline algae are present in
Kuwait and southwestern Iraq. The late Cenomanian to Turonian Mishrif
Formation of Kuwait contains coral and rudist bioherms with a chalky
limestone fabric. The Nasiriyah Embayment of southern Iraq was still in
existence, but was probably not as prominent as before. Marine deposits
of late Cenomanian age (Mishrif Formation) in central Arabia were
followed by a marked hiatus until the late Campanian (D. Vaslet, BRGM,
personal communication, 2000). This hiatus is the mid-Turonian
unconformity that occurred at the base of AP9 (Sharland et al., 2001).
The shelf breaks of the shallow Rub’ Al-Khali Basin and Lurestan
intrashelf basin of Iran are marked by carbonate shoal deposits that
merge basinward into bioclastic micrites with oligosteginid and pelagic
foraminifera. The shelf break shows an increase of bioclastic detritus
and is marked by the occurrence of thick-walled, limid and ostreid
bivalves (Alsharhan and Nairn, 1993). The crest and immediate back shoal
area have an increased rudist content, in places with biostromal
attitudes. The crests of these build-ups were strongly bioturbated, to
the extent that no bedding traces are preserved. The sheltered lagoonal
beds are laden with benthonic foraminifera. The Hoowarin-Hazar High was
still shedding detrital material into the Rub’ Al-Khali Basin (Azzam,
1995; Pascoe et al., 1995).
Rudist facies are recorded from most of the fields west of Basra in
Iraq, and also from Majnoon and the Buzurgan area. Similar facies are
present all around the northern end of the Gulf. From the Rutbah High
westward, facies changes from shallow-marine carbonates to hypersaline
lagoons and continental deposits took place. Dunnington (1958) recorded
erosional truncations and weathering effects in northern Iraq. West of
Baghdad is an extensive evaporite pan (Kifl Formation) that is presumed
to be located over a broad and stable Hercynian block and could be
related to the Abu Jir fault zone of Lovelock (1984).
On the northern edge of the Arabian Plate, shallow-marine conditions
prevailed in which carbonates were deposited. The lower part of the
Derdere Formation of southeast Turkey consists of transgressive
open-marine skeletal calcarenite units that shoal progressively upward
into a shallow-marine environment. The capping units of the Derdere
Formation are essentially transgressive, although vugs and fissures
indicate intermittent high-frequency subaerial exposure (Cater and
Gillcrist, 1994). Over the Mardin uplift, vuggy dolomites pass laterally
into deeply karstified sequences. The Khleisia High of eastern Syria and
northern Iraq appears to be separated from the Rutbah High by a shallow
seaway that later became the Euphrates Graben.
In the Levant, a rudist-reef barrier marks the shelf break south of
Mount Carmel and may be traced into northern Sinai according to Bein
(1976) and Hirsch (1991). Open-marine Negba chalks characterize the
Pleshet Basin in offshore Levant. Shallow-marine shales occur in the
southern Negev and Sinai. The Azrak Graben in Jordan contains basal
deep-water chalky limestones that are equivalent to the Deir Hanna and
Negba formations of the Levant (Hirsch, 1991). The Fuluk and Siwaqa
graben-bounding faults restricted the limestone development.
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Late Cretaceous to
Early Paleocene: Senonian to Danian (89–60.9 Ma) (Figure
16)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Shiranish, Gurpi (Iraq,
Iran), Aruma and Simsima (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates),
and Fiqa (United Arab Emirates, Oman) formations, and their regional
equivalents [MFS K150 to intra-Pg10]. It approximates to the interval of
AP9 (92 to 63 Ma). The pre-Cenozoic unconformity at 63 Ma (Sharland et
al., 2001) is the base of AP10 and marks the cessation of ophiolite
obduction along the eastern margin of the Arabian Plate. The sediments
were deposited within a compressive foreland basin setting following
onset of mid-Turonian ophiolite obduction along the eastern margin of
the Plate.
Paleofacies
Figure 16 illustrates the depositional features during the late Senonian
(Campanian-Maastrichtian) and shows the approximate extent of the early
Senonian erosional limit onto the shallow platform (Murris, 1980). Koop
and Stonely (1982) indicated truncation and onlap on a pre-Late
Cretaceous unconformity [middle Turonian unconformity, base AP9 dated at
92 Ma]. In the deeper intrashelf basins (such as the Lurestan Basin),
continous sedimentation occurred across this marked hiatus. Tectonic
uplift and the rejuvenation of former N-trending structures coupled with
erosion occurred as far north as the Zagros range of Lurestan.
A narrow NW-trending foredeep formed west of the rising orogen as a
result of ophiolite obduction. The erosional products from the orogenic
front were shed as flysch deposits into the foredeep where deeper-water
marine conditions were present (e.g. Simsima and Shiranish formations).
Oceanic sediments (radiolarites) and ophiolites were emplaced onto the
Oman continental margin. At the same time, a shallow-water carbonate
platform formed over the interior of the Arabian Shield.
Haq et al. (1988) proposed a generally slow sea level fall during this
period. In contrast, based on evidence from the Arabian Plate, Harris et
al. (1984) consider a relative rise in sea level that was the highest of
the whole Cretaceous. It is likely that a foundering of the eastern part
of the Plate caused a widespread and progressive westward onlapping of a
shallow sea. For the Levant area, however, an early Senonian uplift is
postulated, with evidence of inversion of older structures and a first
phase of Syrian Arc deformation. These movements were probably an effect
of the closure of the Neo-Tethys (Guiraud and Bosworth, 1997; Walley,
2001).
A reduction in the exposed landmass occured during the late Senonian and
a broad shallow-marine shelf developed on which were deposited
limestones of the Aruma Formation. The former intrashelf basins (Lurestan
and Khuzestan in Iran) had by now been consolidated to form one long,
relatively narrow foredeep trough along the future Zagros Fold Belt.
Deeper-marine shales of the Shiranish, Sa’adi and Gurpi formations in
part represent source rocks (Gurpi) or caprock (Shiranish). Close to the
Zagros main thrust, silt and sandstones of the Amiran and Tanjero flysch
formations were deposited in the foredeep. This clastic detritus
heralded uplift, or compression, which resulted in folding and erosion
farther east during the continuing ophiolite obduction onto the eastern
margin of the Arabian Plate (Hooper et al., 1995). Ophiolite nappes were
emplaced along the Zagros Main Thrust in Iran, in Oman (Hawasina), and
in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus.
The Levant underwent a radical change in the sedimentary regime at this
time (Hirsch, 1991). The Syrian Arc influenced the paleotopography so
that the crests of the anticlines formed a cluster of small islands,
whereas the synclines formed small basins in which chert and phosphate
sequences (Mishash Formation) accumulated. Intercalations of limestone
and chalk of the Ein Zeitim-Chekka formations cover most of the area.
The compressive stresses exerted on the Arabian Plate are evident in the
en-echelon alignment of fold structures in the Levant (Walley, 1998),
the accentuation of the Azraq Graben, and the complex structures of the
Euphrates Graben. Additional evidence is the emplacement of the
Campanian Tayarat basaltic extrusives in the Euphrates Graben (de Ruiter
et al., 1995). At the same time, the Sinjar and Anah grabens were
forming in Iraq. The easterly oriented graben system in the Sinjar-Abd
el Aziz area of Syria began to subside in the late Campanian–Maastrichtian
(Brew et al., 1999). The prominent Sinjar Basin was structurally related
to the Palmyra Basin until the late Mesozoic. After the prerift uplift
and concurrent erosion over the northern margin of the Arabian Plate, a
brief magmatic event in the Euphrates Graben marked the maximum
extension. This phase was followed by postrift subsidence during the
late Cretaceous (Senonian) and Paleogene (de Ruiter et al., 1995).
Consequently, the deposition of more than 1,600 m of marly limestones (Shiranish
and Aaliji formations) took place in an open-marine setting.
In the course of the collision of the Arabian Plate with Eurasia, the
elongate Kastel Trench of southeast Turkey was formed at the northern
extremity of the Plate and was rapidly filled with fine-grained,
deep-water sediments containing planktonic foraminifera. Persistent
tectonic movements ahead of the advancing ophiolite nappes changed the
depositional conditions (Gilmour and Mäkel, 1997). In this new tectonic
environment, large gravity-slide complexes of platform carbonates (Karadur
Complex), ophiolites, and submarine lavas (Kocali Complex) from the
Taurus fold belt were emplaced into the foredeep.
In southeast Turkey, the Karababa Formation of Turonian (Alsharhan and
Nairn, 1997) to Coniacian to early Campanian age (Cater and Gillcrist,
1994), represents a renewed transgressive cycle with intervening phases
of exposure and weathering that formed caverns and collapse structures.
At the northernmost extremity of the Arabian Plate, debris flows
indicate slope instability. According to Cater and Gillcrist (1994), the
rich planktonic fauna of the mid-Campanian Sayindere Formation
represented a deep-water to pelagic depositional environment that
indicated the final collapse of the carbonate platform. They suggested
that the rapid subsidence of the plate margin was related to the advance
of the Kocali ophiolite complex and the Kastel basinal formation in
front of the uplifting Late Cretaceous thrust sheets of the Taurus
orogenic belt. The overlying Maastrichtian to Late Paleocene Germav
Formation on the northern plate margin is composed of a lower
transitional nearshore to shallow-marine conglomerates; a middle,
shallow-marine limestone sequence with ephemeral rudistid and coral
build ups; and a thick upper flysch succession that grades basinward
into pelagic limestones.
In the Gulf region, older Hercynian lineaments were reactivated: for
example, the Burgan and Khafji arches. In Oman during the early
Campanian, this compressive tectonic phase led to the overthrusting and
emplacement of the Sumeini and Hawasina nappes and the obduction of the
Semail Ophiolite Nappe onto the eastern margin of the Arabian Plate (Le
Métour et al., 1995). Subsequently, the Oman Platform became submerged
and a series of transgressions resulted. This setting lasted through the
Maastrichtian with deposition of the Aruma and Simsima formations. The
Aruma unconformably overlies early Turonian rocks [mid-Turonian
unconformity; base AP9 dated at 92 Ma].
The emplacement of the nappes caused the downflexing of the Oman Margin
and the formation of the Muti Basin southwest of the newly formed
mountain belt. Through isostatic readjustment, the foreland basin was
locally subject to uplift and erosion; for example, in the Zumul and
Lekhwair structures (Béchennec et. al., 1995; Le Métour et al., 1995).
The Muti Basin initially underwent rapid subsidence and deposition of
more than 1,000 m of hemipelagic mudstones, chalk and shales of the
Campanian to Maastrichtian Fiqa Formation. The Fiqa is overlain
conformably by the shallow-water Maastrichtian limestones of the Simsima
Formation. In the western Oman Mountains in early Maastrichtian time,
fanglomeratic to alluvial fan deposits of the Qahlah Formation appear to
intertongue with upper Fiqa shales in a nearshore position. Cessation of
orogenic activity is marked by the transgression of the Qahlah detrital
clastics over the Semail Ophiolites and the onlap of the Simsima
Formation onto the allochton of the Oman Mountains (Nolan et al., 1990).
The discovery of marine vertebrates from northern Saudi Arabia (Thomas
et al., 1999) led to an age revision of the Lina Member, previously the
uppermost unit of the Aruma Formation. The Lina had formerly been
assigned a Maastrichtian age. However, based on the stratigraphic and
paleontologic study of the marine vertebrates (mainly selachian fishes
and a primitive dermochelid sea turtle), a Late Paleocene to Early
Eocene age was proposed. The revised position of the Lina member
emphasizes the existence of an important sedimentary hiatus
[pre-Cenozoic unconformity, base AP10 dated at 63 Ma] of about 10 My at
the top of the Aruma. The hiatus coincides with the Cretaceous-Tertiary
boundary in Arabia (Thomas et al., 1999). This important break has been
noted throughout central and northern Arabia, and in Qatar, the Rub’ Al-Khali
Basin, and Oman.
It is possible that the southeastward tilt of the Arabian Plate was a
precursor to the rifting of the northern Red Sea. Only the downthrown
and collapsed southeastern plate margin in Oman gives evidence (Aruma
shales) for continous Danian deposition (Roger et al., 1992; Platel and
Roger, 1989; Roger et al., 1989). Shallow-marine to intertidal marls and
evaporite prerift deposits in the northern Red Sea trough (Suqah group)
indicate an initial marine ingression from the north along the
depression of the proto-Red Sea. Interbedded basalts occur locally.
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Figure Captions (Cenozoic)
Click here for sequence of these facies maps of Cenozoic.
Figure 17: Paleofacies of the Late Paleocene to Early Eocene spanning
deposition of the Rus, Umm er Radhuma, and Pabdeh formations, and their
regional equivalents [MFS Pg10 to intra-Pg20]. Sediments were deposited
within a ‘remnant’ foredeep setting during rapid erosion, lowering, and
subsidence of the emergent ophiolite and sedimentary structures along
the eastern margin of the Plate. With information from: Andrews (1992b); Filbrandt et al. (1990); Gilmour and Mäkel (1996); Goff et al. (1995);
James and Wynd (1965); Koop and Stonely (1982); (Kraig and Kozlu (1990);
Le Métour et al. (1995); Nolan et al. (1990); Murris (1980); Ponikarov
(1966); Roger et al. (1989); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous
Report 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
Figure 18: Paleofacies of the Middle to Late Eocene spanning deposition
of the Jaddala, Dammam, and Pabdeh formations, and their regional
equivalents [GSS intra-Pg30]. The sediments were deposited in a
structural setting comparable to those of the underlying succession.
With information from: Andrews (1992b); Filbrandt et al. (1990); Gilmour
and Mäkel (1996); Goff et al. (1995); Guiraud et al. (2001); Hertig et
al. (1995); Koop and Stoneley (1982); Kraig and Kozlu (1990); Le Métour
et al. (1995); Nolan et al. (1990); Ponikarov et al. (1966); Roger et
al. (1989); and unpublished Saudi Aramco Miscellaneous Report 913 (W.J.
Koop, 1982).
Figure 19: Paleofacies of the Oligocene
spanning deposition of the Pabdeh-Chilon (Palani) formations and their
regional equivalents [MFS Pg30 to intra-Ng10]. A major unconformity and
sedimentary hiatus [base of AP11 dated at 34 Ma]
affected much of the Arabian Plate. The sediments were deposited in a
compressive foreland setting during the early stages of continental
collision between the Arabian and Eurasian plates. On the western side
of the Plate, the Red Sea was in a rifting stage prior to the advent of
sea-floor spreading and the splitting of the Afro-Arabian Plate.
With
information from: Andrews (1992b); Ellis et al. (1996); Goff et al.
(1995); Guiraud et al. (2001); Koop and Stoneley (1982); Kraig and Kozlu
(1990); Le Métour et al. (1995); Nolan et al. (1990); Ponikarov et al.
(1966); Roger et al. (1989, 1992); and unpublished Saudi Aramco
Miscellaneous Report 913 (W.J. Koop, 1982).
Figure 20: Paleofacies of the Miocene spanning deposition of the Hadrukh,
Dam, Hofuf, Fars, Agha Jari, and Gachsaran formations, and their
regional equivalents, together with massive salt deposits [MFS Ng10 to
post-Ng40]. The sediments were deposited within the Zagros foredeep and
foreland. Strong compression occurred as Arabia separated from Africa
and was driven into Eurasia. With information from: Gilmour and Mäkel
(1996); Goff et al. (1995); Guiraud et al. (2001); Hirsch (1990); James
and Wynd (1965); Koop and Stoneley (1982); Kraig and Kozlu (1990); Le
Métour et al. (1995); Nolan et al. (1990); Ponikarov et al. (1966);
Walley (1998b).
Figure 21: Paleofacies of the Pliocene to Holocene and location of oil
and gas seeps. An extreme lowstand with short-term cycles occurred
during this period. With the exception of the area of the Arabian Gulf (Agha
Jari Formation) most of the Arabian Plate was exposed. As the
continent-to-continent collision between Arabia and Eurasia continued,
the Zagros orogeny intensified. Phases of compression led to the
formation and deformation of the Zagros foredeep in front of the Zagros
mountain belt.With information from: Al Naqib (1967); Al Sayari and Zötl
(1978); Bender (1968); Guiraud et al. (2001); Kent and Hickman (1997);
Link (1952); Litak et al. (1997); Ponikarov et al. (1966); Walley
(1998b).
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Late Paleocene to Early
Eocene: Selandian to Ypresian (60.9–49 Ma) (Figure
17)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Rus and Umm er Radhuma
(Arabian Peninsula) and Pabdeh (Iran) formations, and their regional
equivalents [MFS Pg10 to intra-Pg20]. Active compression ceased.
Sediments were deposited within a ‘remnant’ foredeep-setting during
rapid erosion, lowering, and subsidence of the emergent ophiolite and
sedimentary structures along the eastern margin of the Plate. This time
period essentially represents the first ‘second-order’ depositional
sequence within AP10 of Sharland et al. (2001).
In the northern part of the Arabian Plate, the earlier Cretaceous
foredeep began to deform and generated structural inversion. It
coincided with the formation of the Syrian Arc (Goff et al. 1995). The
N-trending embayments in southern Iraq and northern Kuwait were still
present and the origin for the alignment appears to have been the
Hercynian grain of the Arabian Arch.
Paleofacies
During this time interval, eustatic sea level was generally high with
high-frequency regressive events (Haq et al. (1988. The Umm er Radhuma
Formation [above MFS Pg10] indicates a major change in the environment,
marked by the disappearance of rudist-bearing marine-platform
carbonates. A new depositional cycle began with trangression toward the
end of the Paleocene. Shallow-marine carbonates onlapped far onto the
Arabian Craton and maximum flooding [Pg10] was reached in the Early
Eocene. Light-colored foraminiferal, aphanitic to calcarenitic
limestones and dolomites were deposited. Regionally, from south to
north, a progressive, yet patchy, replacement of limestones by dolomite
occurred.
On foraminiferal evidence, the Umm er Radhuma Formation in Saudi Arabia
was dated as Late Paleocene to Early Eocene (Powers et al., 1966). The
fauna suggest that the carbonates belong to the sublittoral to neritic
bathymetric zone. The wide variety of pelecypods and gastropods (naticids,
cerithids and strombids) indicate more specifically a protected to
lagoonal depositional environment. The Umm er Radhuma depositional
environment eventually shoaled to become a restricted lagoonal to
supratidal sabkha setting in which the Rus Formation was deposited [HST
of Pg10]. These near-shore facies prograded basinward. West of the
Rutbah High in Iraq, a wedge-out of the Umm er Radhuma occurred toward
the uplift (Alsharhan and Nairn, 1997). In this area, the Formation
became marly, phosphatic, and cherty, and a nearshore to lagoonal
depositional setting was interpreted.
Deeper-water environments within the remnant foredeep were only reached
close to the eastern Plate margin. The Aaliji Formation of Syria and
Iraq is composed of basinal clastics and carbonates. This foredeep
extended into the Muthaymiah Trough of the Oman Mountains (Le Métour et
al., 1995). Fine-grained, clastic-to-shale units alternate with thin
argillaceous limestone beds that represent turbidite flysch sequences
from the Zagros. Based on its chert content, the upper shale member is
considered to have been deposited in deep water (James and Wynd, 1965).
Hertig et al. (1995) reported calciturbidites in the Muthaymiah Trough
that originated from the southeastern Oman Shelf. The Pabdeh shale
formation of Iraq and Iran changes facies westward into
platform-interior carbonates (Umm er Radhuma equivalent). Southward in
the Fars Province, foredeep sediments grade into a mixed Pabdeh (shale)
and Jahrum (limestone) facies. The Jahrum appears to be directly
comparable with the Umm er Radhuma Formation of the platform interior.
The Sachun Formation is a dolomite and sulfate sequence about 150 m
thick in Fars (James and Wynd, 1965).
In the south, the Rub’ Al-Khali Basin had disappeared but the presence
of the Muthaymiah Trough, as a western foredeep of the Oman Mountains,
indicated ongoing extension that existed until the Early Eocene. In the
foredeep, debris flows and turbiditic slope sediments were mixed with
fine-grained basinal sediments. Basinal shales also accumulated in the
Mahdi Basin, southeast of the Haushi-Huqf uplift, and in the Abal Trough
(east of Muscat) where hemipelagic mudstones were deposited (Le Métour
et al., 1995).
The Hadramaut region of Yemen remained a depositional area for
shallow-marine carbonates whereas, to the south and west, shallow-marine
sands (Medjzir Formation) and shales were deposited. Farther north, in
the Red Sea Graben, deltaic to shallow lacustrine shales dominate the
Suqah group; the presence of charophytes provide evidence for brackish
to freshwater depositional environments (Hughes and Filatoff, 1995).
Oolitic ironstones in the Shumaysi formation west of Jeddah (Moore and
Al-Rehaili, 1989) indicate a lacustrine to soil type depositional
environment (D. Vaslet, personal communication, 2000).
In the Levant, a shallow shelf was the site of deposition of chalky and
cherty limestones and marls of the Taqiye Formation and an unnamed, but
similar, formation in Lebanon. The Taqiye is conformable on paleosols on
the Syrian Arc ridges (Hirsch, 1991) and, similarly, central and eastern
parts of Lebanon were exposed as a result of uplift along the Arc. The
Palmyra Trough appears to have formed a narrow, deep seaway on the
eastern Plate margin, where the Neo-Tethys was closing. In southeastern
Turkey, the imbricated fore-bulge of the compressed platform margin
caused intertidal to supratidal conditions that favored the deposition
of hypersaline evaporites. On the northern extremity of the Arabian
Plate, the Mardin High shows similar evaporitic developments (Kayaköy
Formation) to the Sachun Formation in the Iranian Fars Province. The
upper part of the Maastrichtian to Late Paleocene Germav Formation in
Turkey is a thick flysch succession that grades basinward into pelagic
limestones. Rapid facies changes within the Kayaköy Formation point to a
series of relative sea-level changes that are associated with the
continual tectonic interaction between the Arabian and Eurasian plates.
The evaporites give way to detrital red-bed deposits that originated
from the erosion of ophiolite nappes in front of the Bitlis Suture zone
(Gilmour and Mäkel, 1996).
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Middle to Late Eocene:
Lutetian to Priabonian (49–33.7 Ma) (Figure
18)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned deposition of the Jaddala (Syria, Iraq), Dammam
(Arabian Peninsula), and Pabdeh (Iran) formations, and their regional
equivalents [GSS Pg30]. It essentially represents the second
‘second-order’ depositional sequence within AP10 of Sharland et al.
(2001). The sediments were deposited in a structural setting comparable
to those of the underlying succession.
Paleofacies
The eustatic sea-level curve of Haq et al. (1988) indicates a gradually
falling sea level. Consequently, it is possible that only a relatively
small part of the Arabian Shield was exposed, at least at the beginning
of the depositional sequence.
The Zagros foredeep and the Muthaymiah Trough of Oman appear almost
unchanged from the earlier time period and the sediment types (Pabdeh
Formation) are basically the same as in the Late Paleocene (Hertig et
al., 1995). However, conditions favoring the formation of the Sachun
evaporite flats in the Fars Province of Iran changed, and the influence
of flysch deposition seems to have lessened due to significantly reduced
sediment supply. This implies a stabilization of the margin and a
progressive infilling of the foredeep. Further compression at the
northeastern margin of the Arabian Plate resulted in a basinward shift
of the facies belts toward the craton.
The wide eastern shelf of the Plate was covered by the Dammam Formation
[deposited above MFS Pg20] of limestone and dolomite, marl and shale
that is about 30 m thick in Saudi Arabia. The base of the Dammam
represents an open-marine environment [MFS Pg20], whereas the upper part
indicates a shallow-marine environment and a siliciclastic influence
from the west. The Dammam contains nummulities and has been dated as
upper Ypresian to Priabonian from its foraminiferal content. The contact
with the overlying Oligocene deposits appears to be unconformable [base
of AP11 at 34 Ma].
In western Yemen, the Aden Trap basalts were extruded over large areas
and indicate the thermal doming of the Afar Triangle (Richardson et al.,
1995; Morrison et al., 1997). In the prerift Red Sea depression, non-evaporitic
shales, and lacustrine, deltaic and coastal clastics (e.g. the Suqah
group of the Jeddah region; Moore and Al-Rehaili, 1989), were deposited
on the edges of the basin. The Lower and Middle Eocene in the Levant is
a twofold division of mainly transgressive carbonate cycles. Pelagic
chalks containing radiolarians and foraminifera (Sara/Zora and Horsha
formations) interfinger with shallow-marine, nummulitic limestones (Mizzana
and Matred formations) that were deposited on a broad, shallow shelf at
the northern edge of the Arabian Plate. In the Late Eocene, a second
phase of tectonism affected the Syrian Arc (Walley, 1998a, 2001), and in
Galilee a discordance was noted by Hirsch (1991) between the Middle and
Upper Eocene that may be due to either eustacy or tectonism. The Late
Eocene coral-bearing Har Aqrav limestone barely reached onto the Arabian
Craton as its lateral extent was limited by uplift. At the same time,
the broad shallow shelf of Syria and Iraq was covered by neritic or
shallow-marine carbonates (Jaddala Formation) formed during the
transition to the detrital, molasse-type Gerçus Formation deposited in
front of the Taurus-Zagros orogenic front (Gilmour and Mäkel, 1996).
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Oligocene: Rupelian to Chattian
(33.7–23.8) Ma (Figure 19)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned the deposition of the Pabdeh-Chilou (Palani)
formations (Iran, Iraq) and their regional equivalents [MFS Pg30 to
Ng10]. A major unconformity and sedimentary hiatus [base of AP11 dated
at 34 Ma] affected much of the Arabian Plate. The sediments were
deposited in a compressive foreland setting during the early stages of
continental collision between the Arabian and Eurasian plates. On the
western side of the Plate, the Red Sea was in a rifting stage prior to
the advent of sea-floor spreading and the splitting of the Afro-Arabian
Plate.
The late Paleogene-Neogene evolution of the south-central Turkey triple
junction near Maras at the northwestern extremity of the Arabian Plate,
represents a complex kinematic interplay between the Anatolian Plate (Tauride
Arc) in the northwest and the Arabian Plate to the southeast. Kraig and
Kozlu (1990) suggested that strike-slip motion rather than thrust
tectonics was dominant. The strike-slips created extensional and
compressional components that varied with time and space to form a
series of small troughs that were mainly filled with clastic sediments.
Paleofacies
The map reflects the pronounced fall in sea level during the Oligocene
to expose almost the entire Arabian Plate. The Neo-Tethys was closing
rapidly and the Zagros foredeep along the northeastern plate margin once
more became a narrow trench in which mainly limestones were deposited
along its margins. In the central part of the foredeep, Pabdeh-type
sedimentation (Palani Formation) continued with silty to sandy shales
alternating with argillaceous limestone intercalations. In the Late
Oligocene, the limier Taleh Zang Formation was deposited. In the deepest
part of the narrow basin, Goff et al. (1995) recorded a condensed
pelagic sequence that is locally characterized by a lacuna. Farther east
toward the High Zagros, the deposition of the variegated marly to silty,
in part calcareous, Razak Formation indicated uplift and erosion of the
eastern Plate margin. The flanking shelves of the Zagros foredeep are
composed of light-colored, well-jointed, micritic and foraminiferal
limestones with nummulites and miliolids that form the well-known
reservoir rocks of the Asmari Formation.
In the
center of the Zagros foredeep, the lower Asmari limestones change to
calcareous sandstones (the Ahwaz sandstone member) that have a
subordinate marine shale component (James and Wynd, 1965). Alshahran and
Nairn (1997) considered the Asmari sandstone to be correlative with the
Ghar Formation in Kuwait. The sediment supply appears to have been
derived from the prerift uplift of the Red Sea to the west. The
localization of the Ghar/Ahwaz delta of southern Iraq and western Iran
was probably influenced by deep-seated ‘Hercynian’-age lineaments that
extended north from the Central Arabian Arch.
In the south, the Gulf of Aden was about to rift. A series of small
E-trending troughs (Hasik and Ashawq grabens), opened in Dhofar during
the Rupelian (Platel and Roger, 1989; Roger et al., 1989; Roger et al.,
1992). Deeper-marine carbonates (Mughsayl Formation) off Dhofar gave way
toward the Afar region at the southern end of the Red Sea to
shallow-marine shales and eventually to coastal, shallow-marine clastics
(Hami Formation). In southwest Yemen, the Aden volcanics were extruded,
as well as vast outpourings of intraplate volcanics in Ethiopia (Beydoun
and Sikander, 1992). In southwestern Saudi Arabia, four small basaltic
lava fields (harrats) occur near to the eastern edge of the
incipient Red Sea rift. This volcanic activity was the earlier of two
phases of volcanism associated with the rifting and opening of the Red
Sea.
The Red Sea was in a thermal uplift prerift status. The entire protorift
was marked by terrestrial to fluviolacustrine sediments and coastal to
shallow-lacustrine clastics. Variegated siltstones interbedded with
basalt flows and lacustrine sediments with charophytes (Matiyah
Formation) were reported by Hughes and Filatoff (1995). The volcanics
have been dated radiometrically at 33–34 Ma (earliest Oligocene) [base
of AP11].
Similar conditions are found in the Levant. The Dead Sea Transform Fault
was not yet active, as continental detritus (red beds of the Taiyba
Formation) was discharged from the Arabian Craton onto the Sinai and
Negev plains (F. Hirsch, personal communication, 1999). Walley (2001)
suggested further inversion of older Levantine extensional structures.
The Aleppo High, and its southern continuation into Lebanon, were
exposed land on which lacustrine and continental sediments accumulated
in major synclines. Shallow-marine conditions, including some evaporite
flats, still persisted from the Eocene on the Mardin High.
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Miocene: Aquitanian to Messinian (23.8–5.3
Ma) (Figure 20)
Regional Setting
This time period spanned deposition of the Hadrukh, Dam, Hofuf (Saudi
Arabia), and Fars, Agha Jari and Gachsaran (Iran) formations, and their
regional equivalents, together with massive salt deposits [MFS Ng10 to
post-Ng40]. The sediments were deposited within the Zagros foredeep and
foreland. Strong compression now occurred as Arabia separated from
Africa and was driven into Eurasia.
During this period the Burdigalian phase of the European Alpine Orogeny
occurred. The Gulf of Aden had opened and the Red Sea rift began to
separate Arabia from Africa. Complex strike-slip deformations along the
Dead Sea Transform Fault resulted in uplift and faulting along the
Syrian Arc. Through collision of Arabia with Eurasia, inversion in the
Palmyrides and the Sinjar uplift occurred as well as minor transpression
in the Euphrates Graben (de Ruiter et al., 1995; Brew et al., 1999;
Sawaf et al., 2000). On the eastern flank of the Arabian Plate, the
thrusting of the Sanandaj-Sirjan zone onto the Plate is evidence of the
continental collision with Asia. As a result, a massive supply of
continental to deltaic clastics occurred and shallow-marine shales
accumulated in the rapidly subsiding Zagros foredeep. Post-Asmari
Miocene to Recent sediments reached a thickness of over 5,000 m in the
Dezful Embayment of the Zagros Basin (Koop and Stoneley, 1982).
Volcanic activity was widespread and prolonged in western Arabia
beginning at about 12 Ma (Camp and Roobol, 1991; Roobol and Camp, 1991).
This was the second phase of volcanic activity associated with the
opening of the Red Sea. Historical eruptions (e.g. at Al Madinah in
AD1256) show that volcanism is still in progress. The basaltic lava
fields (harrats) extend intermittently from Yemen, through western Saudi
Arabia and Jordan, and as far north as southern Turkey. They have a
total surface area of about 180,000 sq km and constitute one of the
world’s largest basalt provinces.
Paleofacies
The N-trending Hercynian lineaments of the Central Arabian Arch extend
far north into the Zagros foredeep. They separate on the western (Iraqi
side), the massive wedge of the Lower Fars clastics and evaporites from
the eastern Gachsaran salt marshes of the Khuzestan Province, (Agha Jari
and Dam formations) and shallow-marine carbonates (Guri Formation) in
the Fars Province. The hypersaline deposits relate to a relative fall in
sea level at the end of the Oligocene. The marine connection, or
‘Tethyan Seaway’ of Goff et al. (1995), became obstructed along the
narrow foreland basin so that basinal evaporites began to precipitate in
the former foredeep.
Around the Arabian Arch, a halo of mainly continental (Hadrukh
Formation) to transitional-marine sediments (Dam Formation) were
deposited. In the interior of the Arabian Plate, age-equivalent
lacustrine sediments belong to the Hofuf Formation. The Hadrukh consists
of calcareous to silty sandstones and sandy limestones with chert
concretions. The Dam is composed of variegated marl and shales, with
some chalk, limestone and coquina beds. In Saudi Arabia, the Hofuf
Formation is essentially a sandy, marl-limestone sequence (lower part),
with some calcareous sandstones and gravel beds. Charophytes,
corbicula sp., planorbis sp., and Thiara sp.
gastropods suggest freshwater depositional conditions (Powers et al.,
1966). Due to uplift of the western part of the Arabian Shield, rapid
erosion and denudation of the interior occurred and vast amounts of
gravel become incorporated into the Hofuf Formation. The clastic
components are primarily quartz and igneous and metamorphic rocks, but
sedimentary rocks (particularly from the Jabal Tuwayq escarpment), also
occur.
The Gulf of Aden was by now a shallow sea with carbonate deposition. The
Red Sea was periodically isolated and this resulted in the deposition of
thick evaporite deposits during the Middle Miocene in its northern half
(Zeit, South Gharib, and Belayim formations). A marine depositional
environment is indicated by the presence of dynoflagellate cysts in the
intra-evaporite shale units. In addition, the abundant
pyrite-impregnated amorphous kerogen suggests an anoxic setting. The
Early Miocene Burgan Formation in the southern Red Sea is a deep-marine
clastic unit characterized by the presence of the foraminifera
Globigerina. The Late Miocene is expressed by coarse to fine-grained
siliciclastic sediments of transitional, shallow-marine nature, with
occasional sabkha deposits (e.g. the Ghawwas Formation) (Hughes and
Filatoff, 1995; Beydoun et al., 1998). The connection of the Red Sea to
the eastern Mediterranean is questionable and at best a shallow marine
sill may have existed. The Mediterranean formed a deep basin that was
completely shut off from the open sea during the Late Miocene (Messinian).
During this ‘Messinian salinity crisis’, thick evaporite sequences were
deposited in the ‘Herodotus Salt Lake’.
The northern Arabian Plate was covered by shallow-marine sediments with
the exception of the tectonically affected zones along the northern and
eastern margins of the Plate. In the Maras area on the northwestern edge
of the Plate, red beds and basalt flows pass upward into terrestrial
conglomerates and sandstones of the Kizildere and Döngel formations. In
the Aslantas-Iskenderun Basin, the sedimentary sequence begins with
shales and turbidites, followed upward by shales and fine to coarse
clastics, comparable to the Kizildere Formation. The equivalent sequence
on the Anatolian Block consists of terrestrial sands and conglomerates
deposited in front of the Taurid Arc (Kraig and Kozlu, 1990). With
renewed nappe activity in southern Turkey, Selmo to upper Fars red-bed
clastics spilled onto the shallow-marine platform carbonates (Silvan-Germik
formations) that are located over the imbricated Mardin High in front of
the Bitlis Suture. Toward the close of the Miocene, most of the
northwestern edge of the Plate appears to have been exposed and subject
to erosion. Lacustrine and molasse-type sediments were formed between
the Syrian Arc structures.
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to top.
Pliocene to Holocene: Zanclean
to Present Day (5.3 Ma to 0 Ma) (Figure 21)
Regional Setting
According to the eustatic sea-level chart of Haq et al. (1988), an
extreme lowstand with short-term cycles occurred during this period.
With the exception of the area of the Arabian Gulf (Agha Jari Formation)
most of the Arabian Plate was exposed. As the continent-to-continent
collision between Arabia and Eurasia continued, the Zagros orogeny
intensified and thrusts and fold belts migrated southwestward to their
present position in the Gulf region. Phases of compression led to the
formation and deformation of the Zagros foredeep in front of the Zagros
mountain belt. In places, the youngest sediments overstep Neogene
deposits and rest directly on Cretaceous rocks (Goff et al., 1995).
At the end of the Pliocene, sea level was probably about 150 m higher
than at present (Haq et al., 1988), and the strandlines of this time are
visible on the Arabian mainland. During the Late Pleistocene glaciation,
the proto-Gulf basin was exposed due to glacial ‘drawdown’ of the
oceans. Drainage channels and erosional terraces can be mapped into the
Gulf of Oman (Sarntheim and Walger, 1973). After this drawdown, sea
level rose once again to about its present-day position (Kassler, 1973;
Seibold et al., 1973). Initially shallow-marine shales (Agha Jari) were
deposited in the Arabian Gulf basin, but as the climate became
increasingly arid a predominantly carbonate depositional environment
developed, particularly on the shallow southern margin of the Gulf.
Weijermars (1998) suggests that the Arabian Platform was under
significant collisional stress until the Quaternary, as expressed by the
NNE-trending Batin and W-trending Sahba strike-slip faults. The
Hercynian horst-graben structures seem to terminate within Weijermars
‘East Arabian Block’. The northern margin of the Arabian Plate exhibits
a continuation of the Miocene tectonic patterns with a phase of
thrusting, uplift, and inversion (Kent and Hickman, 1997). This had
started in the Levant with dog-leg deflections in the Dead Sea Transform
Fault system (Walley, 2001) and transpressive effects with significant
inversions in the Palmyrid and Sinjar troughs (Lovelock, 1984; de Ruiter
et al. 1995; Brew et al., 1999; Sawaf et al., 2000).
Paleofacies
The Zagros foredeep (or ‘Mesopotamian Basin’) roughly corresponds to the
zone between the Mesozoic
unstable shelf to the west and the limit of the Zagros fold belt to the
east. Into the foredeep was
poured a massive (2.5 to 3-km-thick) flood of terrigenous clastics and
boulder conglomerates that
formed the Bakhtiari Formation. Subsidence is interpreted as having been
driven primarily by structural![Next Hit](/images/arrow_right.gif)
loading of Zagros thrust sheets. The pronounced area of subsidence lay
to the west of the central
Arabian N-trending lineaments of the Rayn anticlines (Al-Husseini,
2000). The lower contact of the
Bakhtiari Formation with the 2,000-m-thick Miocene upper Fars Formation
is gradational and its
localization seems to be governed by the same structural trends. The
Dibdibba Formation of southern Iraq and Kuwait extended from the Late
Miocene into the Pliocene. It has the same characteristics as the Late
Miocene Hofuf Formation and is considered to be of similar fluviatile
origin. In the Arabian Gulf, sedimentation continued through from the
Miocene (Agha Jari Formation).
Tectonic activity along the northwestern margin of the Plate formed
basins in which lacustrine deposits accumulated. A major basin evolved
into the Azraq Graben in present-day Jordan (Qirma Formation). In the
Dead Sea Graben, Usdom (Sedom) evaporites precipitated in rhombochasms.
In the eastern Mediterranean, pelagic sandy shales of the Yafo Formation
represent the Pliocene transgression. Here, the littoral facies is made
up of terrigenous clastics in the Pleshet Basin and finally by dunes and
paleosols of the Kurkar Formation.
The Red Sea, in a renewed rift/drift phase (Hughes and Filatoff, 1995)
received sediments from a variety of coastal to marine transitional
environments. Collectively they make up the Lisan Formation that is
equivalent to the supra- to intertidal siliclastic Warden and
Khulaysiyah formations on the flanks (Tihama Group), the shallow-marine
carbonate Shagara Formation on the narrow shoulders of the rift, and
deep-marine (upper bathyal) sediments within the rift basin. The inner
trench contains typically subalkaline basalts. The Gulf of Aden had by
now opened widely. It contains essentially shallow-marine carbonates but
undifferentiated shales have been drilled off Socotra Island (Richardson
et al., 1995). Volcanism on the western margin of the Plate that began
in the Miocene has continued into historical times.
Fluvial and eolian processes are eroding the interior of the Arabian
Plate. Some areas, particularly on the Arabian Shield, are bare
windswept bedrock (hammada). Elsewhere, coarse sand and angular,
up to pebble-sized, lag deposits remain. Major sand seas (Rub’ Al-Khali,
An Nafud, Ad Dahna) have characteristic wind-sculpted morphologies. The
coastal regions have extensive tidal flats characteristic of an arid
climate. The Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, and Levant coasts are typical of
mediterranean seas with low tidal-flooding influences other than by
seasonal winds. Only the shores of Oman are influenced by significant
oceanic tides and waves.
Ephemeral lacustrine salt flats form in the eastern Rub’ Al-Khali (Umm
as Samim) where the southerly monsoonal run-off from the Oman mountains
annually transforms the interdune areas into salt marshes. Lacustrine
deposits are also present in the mouth of the Euphrates (Shatt al Arab),
where vertical tectonic movements are continuing (Kassler, 1973).
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1. During the Late Permian to Middle Triassic (Figures 3,
4, and 5) a new
passive margin developed with Neo-Tethys. The Arabian Plate is
interpreted as an essentially peneplaned ENE-dipping platform. With the
northward drift of the Plate, low-latitude warming occurred.
Shallow-marine and arid-evaporitic environments developed and a regional
carbonate regime spread over the eastern Arabian Platform. This
deposited the Late Permian Khuff Formation and its regional equivalents
(Figure3).
2. During the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic, (Figures 6,
7, and 8), rifting
occurred at the northern end of the Plate. A new northern passive margin
with Neo-Tethys was created. The southern part of the Plate and the
southeastern edge of the Arabian Shield were uplifted and contributed
massive floods of terrigenous clastics toward the northeast (Minjur and
equivalent). It is probable that the Hercynian horst-blocks and grabens
channeled the sands into southern Iraq and as far as Khuzestan in Iran.
West of the Summan Platform, a N-trending seaway developed, possibly a
successor of the Paleozoic Widyan Basin.
3. During the Early to late Middle Jurassic (Figures 8,
9, and 10), the
N-trending Gotnia Basin became established across the head of the
Arabian Gulf, possibly separated by the ‘Rimthan Arch’ from its southern
extension, the Arabian Basin. The Gotnia Basin allowed direct access for
the open marine Neo-Tethys far across the Arabian Platform. The Rimthan
Arch has a northwesterly Najd trend, or an even older trend relating to
the Rayn microplate (Al-Husseini, 2000). In the late Middle Jurassic, a
carbonate regime was dominant throughout the region, and even the
western shelf of the Arabian Basin hosted reefal limestones and buildups
(upper Dhruma Formation and the Tuwaiq Mountain Limestone). In the
Middle Jurassic (Bajocian-Bathonian), incipient graben systems with a
northwesterly Najd trend developed at the southern margin of the Arabian
Plate. They began as a terrestrial to continental infill of erosional
lows or pre-rift structural depressions, and culminated in the Late to
Middle Jurassic (Callovian-Oxfordian) as rift troughs containing
shallow-water carbonates of the Shuqra Formation. In the Levant, limited
Palmyrid-trend rifting occurred and the extrusion of the Devora
volcanics was concurrent with the tectonic activity.
4. The Late Jurassic (Figure 11) was a tectonically active period in
southern Yemen, with clearly expressed rifting related to the separation
of India from the Afro-Arabian Plate. Significant rift-shoulder uplift
characterized the southeastern continental margin of Oman, whilst the
northeastern margin remained remarkably stable and accumulated typical
shelf-margin carbonate sediments. Instability only occurred in the
distal Hawasina Basin. In central Arabia, slow but progressive infill of
the intrashelf basins took place through repetitive shoaling-upward
carbonate cycles. These cycles usually culminated in subaerially exposed
evaporite flats (sabkhas). The Gotnia and Arabian basins may have been
intermittently connected by Najd- and Hercynian-trending seaways across
the southern Gotnia rim.
The Levant region also shows uplift and rifting coincident with massive
Tayasir volcanism. The Arabian-Nubian Shield was to a considerable
extent exposed and eroded. Sedimentation was largely controlled by
tectonocrustal influences. Similar conditions existed in the Arabian and
Gotnia basins.
5. At the beginning of the Cretaceous (Figure
13), global sea level was
relatively high and consequently most of the Arabian Plate accumulated
almost exclusively shallow-marine carbonates. The major exception was
the remnant of the Gotnia Basin that underwent rapid subsidence in the
eastern part along Hercynian lineaments to form a narrow deeper-marine
intrashelf basin in which the Balambo shales of Iraq and the Garau of
Iran accumulated. The Arabian Basin was rapidly infilled, first by
carbonates and later by terrigenous clastics (Buwaib and Biyadh
formations). The southeast Oman plate-margin segment was foundering
accompanied by the establishment of open-marine, deep-shelf deposits.
In the late Early Cretaceous (Figure 14), extensive rudist banks
colonized the shelf breaks to the intrashelf basins, such as the Shilaif
Basin in the southern Gulf, and in the Levant. Following the opening of
the central Atlantic Ocean, a distinct change in motion of the Arabian
Plate has been postulated by Al Fares et al. (1998). Far-field stresses
are thought to have resulted in the uplift and erosion of the western
part of the Arabian Craton and the supply eastward of large amounts of
terrigenous clastics and shallow-marine sands. The plate stress,
combined with sufficient sediment loading, served to trigger the growth
of salt structures in the area of the southern Arabian Gulf over which
numerous rudist banks developed.
In the early Late Cretaceous (Figure 15), a renewed spread of rudist
growth (Mishrif Formation) occurred to the east, northeast and northwest
of the Arabian Plate (the Shilaif Basin, Khuzestan Province, and Pleshet
Basin).
6. Neo-Tethys became compressive and began to close during the Late
Cretaceous (Turonian) to Early Paleocene (Figure
16). Ophiolite that was
obducted onto the Arabian Plate margin may be observed in Oman, at many
places along the NE Zagros margin, and in the Troodos Mountains of
Cyprus. Flysch-type turbidites accumulated in the foredeep in front of
the advancing allochthon along the eastern Plate margin. Hercynian-trend
lineaments extended northward from the Central Arabian Arch into the
Zagros foredeep.
Early Senonian uplift and inversion of older structures occurred in the
Levant. This caused deformations along the Syrian Arc and the onset of
faulting in the Azraq Graben in Jordan. Shallow-marine carbonates were
deposited southward across Sinai into the depression that marked the
proto-Red Sea rift. The deposition of shallow-water and lacustrine
sediments occurred as far south as the Jiddah region.
7. Global sea level during the Late Paleocene to Early Oligocene (Figures 17,
18, and 19) was relatively high and only in the Late Oligocene was
there a marked drop (Haq et al., 1988). At the time of high sea level, a
shallow epeiric sea inundated the eastern platform of the Arabian Plate.
The sea periodically shoaled to emergence, which caused the formation of
transitional coastal sabkhas. The Hercynian structural trends of the
Central Arabian Arch continued to modify the morphology of the foreland
basin. This became progressively narrower as it was filled in, until it
became structurally neutralized. From the late Middle Eocene to Early
Miocene (Figures 18, 19,
and 20), the Arabian Plate began to impact southern
Asia, and the Zagros Orogeny began. The western part of the Plate was
emergent and only on the subsided margins (e.g. the Gulf of Aden), did
marine sedimentation continue. The Priabonian and Oligocene-Miocene
deposits of southern Dhofar and the Hadramaut record the early stages of
rifting and progressive opening of the Gulf of Aden. Western Yemen at
this time was part of the thermally doming Afar Triangle. As a
consequence, vast amounts of volcanic rocks were erupted in the
hinterland of Aden and the southern Red Sea. Although early rifting in
the Red Sea region has been dated as Early Oligocene, the first phase of
sea-floor spreading did not begin until the Early Miocene, and
lacustrine to continental sedimentation prevailed in the pre-rift
depressions.
On the northern margin of the Arabian Plate, molasse and flysch-type
clastics were discharged into the foredeep of the Taurus orogenic belt
(the Aslantes-Iskenderun Basin) and onto the shallow shelf of the Mardin
High. In the Levant, clastic detritus from the Arabian Craton was
discharged onto the Sinai plains and indicates that the Dead Sea
Transform Fault was not yet active, although basaltic extrusives are
present along and adjacent to the incipient fault; volcanics were also
extruded in the eastern Mediterranean. A new tectonic phase affected the
Syrian Arc and Galilee, and the Palmyrids and Sinjar inversion
structures.
8. The Miocene to Pliocene (Figures 20–21) was the time of maximum
compression between Arabia and Asia, coeval with the Late Alpine Orogeny
in Europe. During this period, the Arabian Plate began to separate from
Africa, the Gulf of Aden opened, and the Dead Sea Transform Fault acted
as a complex sinistral strike-slip fault. The second phase of sea-floor
spreading in the Red Sea began about 10 Ma and is continuing. The Syrian
Arc, through collision of the Arabian Plate with Eurasia, continued to
undergo inversion. Along the Red Sea margin of the Plate, basaltic lavas
were extruded to form a series of large lava fields (harrats).
Major N-trending faults appear to have controlled the emplacement of
these volcanics. Where this fault zone meets the Red Sea, the character
of the rift sediments changes from constricted marine salina evaporites
(Maqna Group) in the north, to globigerinid, deep-marine shales (Burqan
Formation) in the south.
The N-trending Hercynian lineaments occur as far north as the Zagros
Foredeep, on the western side of which a great thickness (>4,000 m) of
continental sediments was discharged into the rapidly subsiding Lurestan
(foredeep) Province of Iran. To the east, salt marsh evaporites (Gachsaran
Formation) and shallow-marine carbonates and shales were deposited. The
eastern Mediterranean was cut off from open-marine circulation at this
time, and the Late Miocene (Messinian) salina evaporites are proof of
the resultant ‘salinity crisis’.
9. During the Pleistocene, sea level was low (Haq et al., 1988) and, as
a consequence of uninterrupted collision and erosion along the northern
Arabian Plate margin, a large thickness (>1,000 m) of conglomerates and
sands was deposited at the northeastern edge of the Craton. Inversion
and uplift continued in the Palmyrid and the Sinjar basins.
East of the Arabian Arch, the shallow epicontinental Arabian Gulf began
to take its present shape. Initially, shallow-marine shales were
deposited but, as changes to more arid conditions took place, the Gulf
established itself primarily as a carbonate province, particularly on
the shallow shelf along its southern and southwestern coasts. At the end
of the Pliocene, sea level stood about 150 m higher than today and the
subsequent drop in sea level to that of the present day has made visible
old strandlines and erosional terraces. Kassler (1973) reported
high-level terraces in Oman. During the Late Pleistocene glaciation, the
sea-level drawdown was such that the entire Gulf basin became exposed as
far as the Gulf of Oman.
The axis of the Gulf changed from a central position in its Western
Basin (toward the head of the Gulf), to a northward-skewed position in
the Eastern Basin (Central Basin of Purser and Seibold, 1973). This
axial shift was due to the southward bulge of the Zagros fold belt, east
of the Kazerun strike-slip fault. The western axis is
situated in front of the Zagros belt, whereas the axis in the Eastern
Basin is part of the Zagros fold belt. Along the Iranian coast and at
the head of the Gulf, ongoing vertical movements of the Zagros Mountains
have been observed in the form of elevated river terraces and renewed
incisions by younger drainage systems; also canals and other artifacts
have been affected by rising anticlines.
The Gulf of Aden continues to open and is underlain by oceanic crust. It
reaches bathyal depths and is rimmed by a narrow marine shelf. The Red
Sea is also a spreading center and now forms a 1,900-km-long trench that
has a maximum depth of 2,220 m in the Discovery Deep. For the most part,
an extremely narrow shelf parallels the rift. Subalkaline basalts are
accumulating in the southern part of its inner trench. The Dead Sea
Transform Fault is active and several ‘rhombochasms’ have formed, some
of which became isolated basins, as evidenced by lacustrine and
hypersaline depositional environments. The Mediterranean reestablished
normal marine conditions following the Messinian salinity crisis, with
bathyal depths close to the Levant shore.
A striking feature has been the progressive desertification of much of
the region during the Pleistocene-Holocene. Most parts of the Arabian
Peninsula are strongly affected by wind erosion and the accumulation of
wind-blown sand. Large areas are rock deserts or deflation plains (hammada
or najd). Elswhere, huge volumes of loose sand are being
piled up by the prevailing winds in the deserts of the Rub’ Al-Khali of
eastern Arabia, An Nafud of northern Saudi Arabia, and Ad Dahna desert
of eastern Saudi Arabia. In southeastern Arabia, monsoon influences
result in sediment transport by seasonal flow in wadis. Similarly,
ephemeral lacustrine conditions prevail in parts of the eastern Rub’ Al-Khali
and Yemen due to monsoonal flow from the mountains. The Levant is
influenced by seasonal winter rainfall. Under hot, arid conditions, and
in wind-sheltered locations with a relatively stable sea level, the
shorelines of the Arabian Gulf are prograding, and saline supratidal
flats (sabkhas) are spreading basinward.
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1. The Permo-Triassic Khuff non-associated gas accumulations (Figure
3)
are critically dependent on the distribution of Lower Silurian source
rocks (Qusaiba ‘hot shale’) and the presence of an effective caprock in
the form of Khuff evaporites and Lower to Middle Triassic shales (Sudair
and Jilh formations). The primary reservoir lithology is
microcrystalline dolomite.
Mahmoud et al. (1992) depicted a regional Qusaiba ‘hot shale’ isopach
map of central Arabia. It is thickest (>75 m) south of the Central
Arabian Arch and thins in a northeasterly direction toward Bahrain. The
isopach map illustrates a northerly grain. Toward the Kuwait-Saudi
Arabia Partitioned Neutral Zone, a more ‘layer cake’ shale thickness of
30 m is suggested although this is unconstrained by well penetrations.
In Iran, the equivalent Early Silurian Gahkum shale sources the
non-associated gas in equivalent Permian reservoirs (Alsharhan and Nairn,
1997). In the Fahud and Ghaba salt basins of Oman, Precambrian to
Cambrian carbonates and shales of the Huqf Supergroup (Terken, 2000), as
well as the Silurian Sahmah Formation (Droste, 1997), provide source
rocks for the Khuff oil and gas reservoirs.
The Khuff evaporite intervals act as intraformational caprocks for the
numerous gas fields that are mainly present south of the Arabian Arch.
The Khuff contains the world’s largest accumulation of non-associated
gas—the North Field/South Pars of Qatar and Iran (500–600 TCF). Notable
accumulations are also found in Khurais and Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.
2. Petroleum production from Jurassic reservoirs (Figures 8,
9, 10, and
11) is
mostly concentrated around the intrashelf basins (Arabian, Rub’ Al-Khali,
and Ras al Kaimah basins), but is also derived from Late Jurassic
sediments in the Marib and Sayun-Masila basins of southern Yemen.
The extent of the Late Jurassic Arab/Hith anhydrite (Figure
11) and the
presence of mature source rock in the intrashelf basins control the
present-day distribution of the many oil fields in the southern and
western Arabian Gulf region. The Dhruma, Arab, and Hith (Hanifa)
formations are the main producing units. The chief hydrocarbon source is
the anoxic shales of the intrashelf basins in central Arabia, or the
Sargelu and Naokelekan formation in the early Gotnia Basin of Kuwait,
Iraq, and Iran. The source rock can be of Bajocian to Bathonian age (Dhruma
and Sargelu formations) or Callovian to Oxfordian age (Hanifa-Diyab,
Najmah and Naokelekan formations). The cap rocks are formed by the
regionally widespread Arab-Hith evaporites that extend from Iraq to the
southern Rub’ Al-Khali Basin and into the Fars Province of Iran.
In Saudi Arabia, the distribution of Middle Jurassic fields (Figure
9)
is controlled by the occurrence of shelf-calcarenite reservoirs,
exemplified by Ghawar the largest oil field in the world (80–100 billion
barrels total recoverable reserves). In Qatar, the Araej Formation
contains considerable gas reserves in the Uwainat Member. The production
is from interbedded pelletal lime grainstones and packstones, and dense
limestones with moderate moldic to vuggy porosity generated by leaching
during high-frequency hiatuses. Good porosity, however, is often
handicapped by poor permeability. The Middle Jurassic production of the
United Arab Emirates stems from the Upper Araej Formation, a mainly
grain-supported limestone with good porosity and permeability values.
Oil and gas fields in Iran produce from the lower Surmeh limestones.
In the Marib-Shabwa basin of Yemen (Figure 11), the Madbi Formation
(containing shales and fossiliferous platform limestones indicating
restricted water circulation) is late Oxfordian to Kimmeridgian. The
overlying Lam Formation typically represents thick basinal shales that
are interbedded with distal turbidites and thin limestones. The sequence
was deposited during the main precursor-rifting phase prior to the
separation of India from Arabia. The shales of both formations are
source rocks and are widespread in the Marib-Shabwa and Sayun-Masila
basins. The open-marine shale sequence is capped by a stacked,
braided-stream succession that gives way to organic shales, together
with anhydrite and halite. In the Marib-Shabwa Trough, production has
been established around the central high and at the edges of the graben
where fluviatile sands are overlain by, and interbedded with, evaporites.
3. Production from Cretaceous reservoirs (Figures 12,
13, 14, 15,
and 16) shifted
northward and eastward to the Gotnia and Rub’ Al-Khali basins. During
the Early Cretaceous, widespread flooding of the Arabian Craton took
place and shallow-marine carbonates were deposited. The production is
again concentrated on the edges of the carbonate shelf, mainly in the
western ramp of the Gotnia Basin. During Hauterivian to Turonian time (Figure 13,
14, and 15), considerable amounts of clastics derived from the
western hinterland were shed into the Zagros (Gotnia) Basin. They make
up most of the oil reservoirs in Kuwait and southern Iraq. Beyond the
reach of clastic input, rudistid banks occupy the shelf breaks around
the Rub’ Al-Khali and Zagros basins. Shallow-marine shelf limestones and
detrital carbonates host the many (mostly small) reservoirs of the
Zagros Basin in Iran and Iraq, and in the Sinjar Trough of Syria.
The distribution of Early Cretaceous oil and gas fields in the Gulf
region can be broadly subdivided into a shallow-marine shelf carbonates
setting, and more intrashelf deposits (Figure
13).
Shallow-marine shelf-carbonate reservoirs are the upper Ratawi of Saudi
Arabia and Bahrain and the Habshan and Lekhwair formations of the United
Arab Emirates. In Iran, the corresponding reservoirs are in the Fahliyan
Formation, a massive oolitic-peloidal limestone with some fracture
porosity. Other fields belong to the Khami Group, a succession of
massive, thin-bedded limestones of which the Fahliyan Formation is part.
In Syria, oil fields are present in the Euphrates Graben in the Cherrife
(Rutbah) Formation of shales, sandstones, and carbonates deposited in a
shallow, transitional-marine environment close to the Rutbah High.
Shelf-slope reservoirs are mainly found in the southern Gotnia Basin
that had become accentuated since the beginning of Cretaceous. In
general, an interbedded sequence of transgressive and regressive shelf
carbonates were deposited in reaction to eustatic sea-level changes;
oolitic, peloidal, and locally dolomitic lime grainstones alternate with
dense, argillaceous micrites on a generally passive margin.
North of the Arabian Arch, notable Early Cretaceous reservoirs (Zubair
in Kuwait and southern Iraq) occur in the siliciclastic Hauterivian to
Barremain Biyadh Formation. The younger Albian Wasia Formation of the
northern Gulf hosts the Safaniya/Khafji reservoirs and the cyclic sands
of the Burgan reservoir. Vast amounts of oil accumulated in these
reservoirs in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran. Smaller fields occur
in the continental to shallow-marine Rutbah/Biyadh sands in the
precursor depression of the Euphrates Graben. At the northern end of the
former Gotnia Basin, oil fields were developed over, and adjacent to,
the Kirkuk High.
The Chia Gara and Makhul-Garau shales of the confined (Gotnia) Zagros
Basin are considered to be the source rocks for Early Cretaceous ramp
carbonate reservoirs, such as the Yamama Formation of Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait. The source rocks for the Biyadh and Wasia sand wedges were
probably shales of the Garau, Balambo, and Kazhdumi formations. The
Khatiya Formation in the Rub’ Al-Khali Basin is a potential source rock.
Faults and fractures may connect some older Jurassic source rocks, such
as the Sargelu and basinal Naokelekan, with Cretaceous reservoirs.
Late Early Cretaceous oil fields (Figure 14) are mainly localized in the
shallow-marine rudist and associated carbonates (Shu’aiba Formation)
along shelf breaks and above salt pillows/domes in the southern Gulf and
the Rub’al Khali Basin, and are sealed by the overlying Nahr Uhr shales.
The reservoirs have formed mainly in accumulations of biogenic detritus
in a forebank position. Various types of primary and secondary rudistid
porosities were created through extensive porosity and permeability
enhancement by leaching and karst weathering. In Iran, similar
reservoirs were created in the Albian-Turonian Sarvak carbonates in the
Khuzestan Basin, and in Iraq on the Kirkuk High in the Zagros foothills.
In Syria, the Albian Qamchuqa Formation at the southern edge of the
Sinjar Trough produces from a dolomitic (marly) limestone shelf.
4. Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary production (Figure
16) is
clustered around the northern Zagros foredeep and the Sinjar Trough
mainly in shallow-water neritic carbonates. Deep-marine shales of the
Shiranish, Sa’adi and Gurpi formations in part represent source rocks (Gurpi)
or caprock (Shiranish). Shoals at Garzan (southern Turkey) and the
Kirkuk High host bioclastic to reefal limestones that accommodate small
fields in the northern Zagros Basin.
Most of the production from southern Turkey is from fossiliferous,
shallow-water carbonates of the middle Mardin Group. Other production is
from fractured reefoidal limestones of the Late Cretaceous Raman
Formation. Minor production in Syria is from the ‘Massive Limestone’ (micrites
and argillaceous dolomites), Soukne sandstones, and the Shiranish
Formation (marly limestone, in parts reefoid) in the Euphrates Graben
and the Sinjar Trough. The source rocks are considered to be basinal
equivalents.
Production in Iraq is from the Kometan and Shiranish formations in the
Kirkuk and Mosul areas and from shallow-water carbonates of the Hartha
Formation in southern Iraq. In Iran, production in the Khuzestan
Province is from the Sa’adi/Ilam formations for which the Gurpi shales
are the source rock. United Arab Emirates production is from the Ilam
and Halul formation and the Simsima shallow-water carbonates sourced by
the Laffan (Gurpi) shales.
5. Oligocene to Early Miocene production (Figures 19–20) is from the
widely distributed Asmari Formation, a shallow- to marginal-marine
limestone of the Zagros Basin. Localized siliciclastic input from the
western hinterland formed the Ahwaz/Ghar sand reservoir in southern Iraq
and western Iran. The Asmari limestone is generally a dense
mud-supported limestone with a rich foraminiferal fauna in its lower
segment. In spite of its low porosity, the Asmari micrite has a very
effective permeability due to fracturing of the brittle limestone. Two
fracture generations occur. An earlier N-trending, very fine fracture
set seems to be linked to older, basement-induced configurations,
whereas the younger NW-trending set coincides with the present-day
anticlinal stress patterns (McQuillan, 1985; 1991). The source rocks for
the Asmari (Ahwaz) play are the Pabdeh shales of the Zagros foredeep.
The Early Miocene hydrocarbon development along the northern Zagros
foredeep is to a large extent controlled by the distribution of
evaporitic caprocks of the Lower Fars and Gachsaran formations. The
extensive Gachsaran salt and evaporite deposits are the seal to the
Asmari oil accumulations in the Khuzestan-western Fars region of
southwestern Iran.
Miocene oil and gas accumulations in Syria are associated with the vast
foreland evaporite flats of the Lower Fars Formation. They are located
in front of large outwash fans in the Jeribe Formation of the Sinjar
Trough. In Iraq, fields of this age are located at the head of the Gulf
in the sand-shale intercalations of the Hadrukh and Dam formations.
Production in Iran is from the upper Asmari and Mishan formations. In
the Strait of Hormuz, minor amounts of gas are produced from the Mishan
shallow-marine platform carbonates.
6. Surface indications of natural oil and gas seeps (Figure
21) are
often recognized by local names such as naft, which is Arabic for
oil; for example, Naft Khaneh and Naft Shahr, in western Iran, and Ain
an Nafat, west of Baghdad. Man has used the tar and oil seeps since
early historical times.
Oil and gas seeps, as illustrated by Link (1952), are mostly located in
the frontal part of the Zagros fold belt. This area is the mobile belt
of the Mesopotamian Basin where folding and the destruction of earlier
oil pools took place (Beydoun et al., 1992). The seeps are related to
breached and faulted anticlines. Through crestal leakage of the
fractured Asmari limestone reservoir, the oil and gas have reached the
surface. In other cases, leakage is related to low-angle thrust faults
originating in ductile cover-rock sequences, such as salt and anhydrite
of the Lower Fars Formation. These seeps generally occur to the south
and some distance away from the oil-bearing subsurface structures.
Asphalt seeps occur over the Burgan structure of Kuwait and southern
Iraq on the Arabian Craton. The surface structures represent gentle
folds, but faults accommodating drape over underlying basement-induced
horsts acted as hydrocarbon migration pathways. A stringer of bitumen
about 5 cm thick occurs in the Late Jurassic anhydrite at Dahl Hit,
about 40 km southeast of Riyadh. This represents the only unroofed
pinch-out trap on the Arabian homocline. Other oil impregnations have
been found along the Dead Sea Transform Fault and in the Palmyrids.
The paper has been sustained by IGCP Project 369, ‘Comparative Evolution
of Peri-Tethyan Rift Basins’. I wish to thank my IGCP colleagues W.
Cavazza, P.A. Ziegler and A.H.F. Robertson. My thanks also go to M.
Abdul-Baqi, I. A. Al-Jallal, G. Borel, W. Bosworth, R. Guiraud, F.
Hirsch, M.A. Hiyari, J.F. Le Métour, Y.-M. Le Nindre, J.G. McGillivray,
J. Roger, D. Vaslet, C.D. Walley and J.J. Youssef. The important
suggestions of Pete Jeans and Peter Sharland of GeoArabia’s
Editorial Board, and an anonymous referee, are greatly appreciated. I
also thank David Grainger (Geoscience Editor) and Moujahed Al-Husseini
(Editor-in-Chief) of GeoArabia for extensively editing the paper,
and redesigning the graphics in collaboration with Gulf PetroLink’s
graphics team.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martin A. Ziegler
retired in 1989 after a long
and distinguished career in Middle East geology. He was awarded his PhD
in 1961 from Zürich University, Switzerland, for a study of Late
Jurassic facies changes between the Paris Basin and the interior
Helvetic Shelf of the Tethys Basin. Then followed five years with Shell
International studying carbonates in Qatar and rudist mounds in
Switzerland and Oman. From 1968 until his retirement in 1989, he worked
for the Exxon Corporation, first in the Carbonate Facies Group at EPRCO
in Houston and later in various postings in the Middle East and Europe.
Martin was seconded for nine years to Saudi Aramco where he was engaged
in carbonate studies, such as the rudist play in the Shaybah area of the
Rub’ Al-Khali Basin and the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous
stratigraphy of the Gotnia Rim and the Arabian Basin. Since retirement,
he has acted as a consultant on carbonate plays and Middle East geology
in general.
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