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ABSTRACT
Triassic strata of the northern part of the Arabian plate mark the
establishment of the Neo-Tethys passive margin. This ocean first
opened in the western part of the Mediterranean region directly
after the Hercynian orogeny. The strata were deposited on a shallow
carbonate platform surrounded by clastic-evaporitic lagoons and
continental fluvial and eolian settings. The rocks are divided between continental clastics (such as the Budra and the Gaara formations), continental-marine clastics and evaporites (such as the
Mohilla, Abu Ruweis, Beduh, and Baluti formations) and epicontinental marine facies (such as the Saharonim, Salit, and Kurra Chine
formations). These settings are comparable to those of the German
Triassic and have matching lithofacies and eustatic sea level changes.
The succession has been divided into four high-frequency sequences
dominated by highstand systems tract carbonates and highstand systems tract lowstand systems tract evaporites and clastics: the Mulussa Formation, the Kurra Chine dolomite and oolitic limestones,
the clastics in the Euphrates Anah graben in Syria and Iraq, and
the Triassic buildups in the northern parts of the Levant form attractive hydrocarbon reservoirs when they are overlain by the Triassic
Jurassic evaporite sequence and are in communication with Silurian
source rocks. In Syria, the Kurrachine Formation contains both source
and reservoir rocks. On the Aleppo plateau, this formation is believed
to lie at the beginning of the thermal maturation window, whereas
in the areas of Jebbissa, Soukhne, and Souedie, it is in the mature or
overmature windows. The Triassic strata produced fair amounts of
light oil, gas, and condensates from some fields in Syria and Iraq with
a high potential of gas and condensate accumulations in the Levant
region.
Copyright #2004. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights reserved.
Manuscript received June 28, 2003; provisional acceptance September 29, 2003; revised manuscript
received October 30, 2003; final acceptance December 3, 2003.
515
AUTHORS
F. N. Sadooni Department of Geology,
University of United Arab Emirates, Al-Ain, United
Arab Emirates; sadooni@emirates.net.ae
F. N. Sadooni has been an associate professor
and chairman of the Department of Geology,
United Arab Emirates University, since September 2001. He received a Ph.D. in petroleum
geology from the University of Bristol, United
Kingdom, in 1978. After working with Iraq
National Oil Company as a senior exploration
geologist for 13 years, Fadhil joined Yarmouk
University, Jordan, in 1991 and then worked as
a consultant petroleum geologist in Auckland,
New Zealand. In 1998, he joined the University
of Qatar as assistant professor before moving
to the United Arab Emirates University. His research interests include carbonate reservoir
characterization and evaporites. He is a member of the AAPG.
A. S. Alsharhan Department of Geology,
University of United Arab Emirates, Al-Ain, United
Arab Emirates; sharhana@emirates.net.ae
A. S. Alsharhan is professor of geology at the
United Arab Emirates University. He received a
Ph.D. in petroleum geology from the University
of South Carolina in 1985. He has authored and
published more than 80 scientific papers. He
coauthored Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum
Geology of the Middle East (1997) with A. E.
Nairn and Hydrogeology of an Arid Region:
Arabian Gulf and Adjacent Areas (2001) with
Z. Rizk, A. E. Nairn, D. Bakhit, and S. Al-Hajari.
He coedited Quaternary Deserts and Climate
Change (1998) with K. W. Glennie, G. Whittle,
and C. Kendall and Middle East Models of
Jurassic/Cretaceous Carbonate Systems (2000)
with R. W. Scott. His research interests include
Holocene coastal sabkhas of the Arabian Gulf
region and the geology and hydrocarbon habitats of the Middle East and North Africa. He is a
member of the AAPG, SEPM, the International
Association of Sedimentologists, and the Geological Society of London.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to Andrew Horbury for a discussion on the sequence stratigraphy of northern Iraq. The manuscript benefited considerably
from extensive revisions by D. E. Eby, K. W.
Glennie, C. G. Kendall, A. E. M. Nairn, and
R. W. Scott. A. Fowler read the final version and
made many useful amendments, and Hamdi
Kandeel drafted the figures. Varda Arad provided some valuable archives for the study.
516
INTRODUCTION
The discovery of economic hydrocarbons in both Iraq and Syria in the
Triassic rocks of the northern Arabian plate makes these sediments
increasingly important. This has created further interest in these strata
that are already considered important within the context of NeoTethys development. They are distributed across diverse geologic
settings that range from continental, epicontinental, Neo-Tethyan
margins, rift-zone belts, and pelagic seaways. These rocks have been
described from both surface and subsurface localities in most parts
of the Arabian basin (Figure 1). The succession changes gradually
upward from clastics in the lower part to alternations of limestone,
dolomite, anhydrite, shale, and occasionally halite. The average thickness of these Triassic rocks is around 2000 m (6600 ft).
The regional distribution and the depositional setting of the
Upper Triassic rocks on the northern part of the Arabian plate and
around the eastern Mediterranean Sea have been discussed by several workers, including Druckman et al. (1975), Basha (1981), and
Sharief (1982, 1983). They have suggested that the submergence
and emergence of a platform during the late Middle to Late Triassic
has led to the establishment of marginal marine peritidal flats to
the north, which are associated with deposition in sabkhas and shallow lagoons. Fluvial and eolian conditions dominated the southern
part of the platform, whereas deep-water rocks (clastics with cherts,
radiolarite, and reefal limestone associated with pillow lava) were
laid down to the north and beyond the margin of the platform.
Druckman et al. (1982) compared the Triassic section in the
eastern Mediterranean region with the typical Alpine Triassic. They
divided these strata into four sedimentary cycles, which they relate
to the German Triassic facies. The Triassic rocks of Syria were reviewed by Bebeshev et al. (1988). They concluded that the boundary between the Permian and the Triassic is probably positioned at
the base of the mottled sandstones of the Ammanus Formation,
representing a halt in sedimentation separated by two major regional
tectonic events.
The first to examine Triassic eustatic cycles of the Mediterranean region, including the northern parts of Arabia, was Hirsch
(1992). He found that the Triassic cycles in this region are closely
matched to the global eustatic sea level changes and are comparable
with the European Triassic section. According to him, the initial
opening of the Neo-Tethys during the late Spathian Aegean was
represented by a regression in the Levant region. The transgression
that followed during the early late Anisian was in the form of
platform carbonates with Tethyan and endemic fauna. During the
late Carnian and Norian, most of the region was dominated by a
dolomitic, shallow-marine Tethyan facies. Alsharhan and Kendall
(1986) suggested the upper Permian Triassic carbonate and
evaporite rocks of the Arabian basin accumulated on an epeiric
shelf, punctuated by a series of transgressive and regressive events.
A review of the lithostratigraphic relations of the Triassic rocks
over the Arabian basin was conducted by Alsharhan and Nairn
517
Figure 1. Base map of the northern parts of the Arabian plate showing the main locations mentioned in the text.
LITHOSTRATIGRAPHY AND
FACIES DISTRIBUTION
Triassic rocks show a wide lithologic variation and
cover both marine and nonmarine settings. The range
of sedimentary facies and depositional environments
characteristic of the Permian to Triassic strata of the
Middle East has been reviewed by Sharief (1982). Triassic rocks of Syria and Iraq were assigned by Read and
Horbury (1993) to several depositional environments
that range from inner shelves to interplatform basins.
Both Druckman et al. (1982) and Hirsch (1992)
compared the stratigraphic successions and the depositional settings of the Triassic strata of the eastern
Table 1. The Main Formations of the Northern Parts of the Arabian Plate Divided Among the Typical German Triassic Depositional
Environments
German Facies Type
Bunter
Keuper
Werfen
Raibl
Muschelkalk
Dachstein
Lithology
Depositional Environments
conglomerate, cross-bedded
sandstones and shales
with wood and plant remains
evaporites, sandstones, dolomites,
marls, or shales with plant remains
lacustrine, fluviatile,
with eolian influence
mixed carbonate-siliciclastic
shelf
Mediterranean region to the Alpine Triassic. This approach has facilitated regional correlation and enabled a
better understanding of the development of NeoTethys. We have followed a similar approach in this
paper (Table 1). The major Triassic lithofacies of the
northern parts of the Arabian plate have been described
and compared with the classic German Triassic lithofacies and depositional settings described by Aigner and
Bachmann (1992).
The Bunter-Type Facies
This facies consists of conglomerate, cross-bedded
sandstone and shale and contains wood and plant remains. These strata are believed to have been laid down
in terrestrial, lacustrine, and fluviatile settings with
some eolian influence (Hirsch 1992). In the northern
parts of the Arabian plate, this facies is represented by
the Gaara Formation (Anisian/Ladinian) in western
Iraq, the Um Irna Formation (Induan) in Jordan, the
Budra Formation (Ladinian) in the southern parts of
the Levant region, and the Ammanus Sandstone Formation (Induan) in Syria (Table 2).
The Gaara Formation is exposed on the fringes of
the Gaara depression, about 60 km (37 mi) to the west
coastal-marine lagoons
or sabkhas with
heavy clastic influence
Examples
Um Irna, Gaara,
Ammanus Sandstone,
Budra
Nijili, Zor Hauran,
Beduh Shale,
Baluti Shale, Ammanus
Shale, Mukheris
Mirga Mir, Humrat
Maain, Yamin, Zafir
Kurra Chine, Abu
Ruweis, Mohilla
519
Table 2. The Major Lithostratigraphic Divisions of the Triassic Sediments in the Northern Parts of the Arabian Plate
bedded sandstone that grades into fine-grained, crossbedded sandstone and, sometimes, into cross-laminated
sandstone, siltstone, and claystone. The coarse fraction
of the formation represents channel sediments, whereas the fine one is of flood-plain type. The dark color of
some of the claystone beds may suggest their deposition
in a vegetated site on the flood plain (Al-Ameri, 1990).
In Jordan, a similar facies has been assigned to the
Um Irna Formation (Makhlouf et al., 1991) (Table 2).
Figure 2. Outcrop of
the Gaara Formation
in the Duaikhla quarry,
Gaara depression, western desert of Iraq, where
the formation is quarried
for kaolin.
521
formation with those of the overlying Gaara Formation, it was recommended by Jassim et al. (unpublished
report, cited by Sadooni and Aqrawi, 2000) to abandon
the term Nijili and use the term Gaara for the entire
single succession. This practice has not been followed
here because there is a difference in lithology and depositional settings of the two formations. First, the original description of the Nijili Formation includes beds of
saliferous marls, which cannot be accommodated within the definition of the Gaara Formation, and second,
there are similar strata of equivalent age to the Nijili
Formation in northern Iraq. The rocks of this formation
may have been deposited in coastal lagoons and sabkhas
with significant continental clastics.
The Zor Hauran Formation (Rhaetian) was also
described from the western desert of Iraq and has a
similar lithology to the Nijili Formation. It consists
of yellow and green gypsiferous marls and shales with
marly limestone, oolitic and peloidal limestone, and
dolomitic limestone. Near the top, a conglomeratic bed
with an indurated ferruginous crust occurs, suggesting
emergence at the end of the deposition of the formation. The formation has a poorly preserved fossil
assemblage that includes Lingula sp., Myophoria sp.,
Archaediscus sp., Glomospira spp., Trocholina sp., ostracods, and echinoid. The age of the Zor Hauran Formation is not known with certainty and is based largely
on tentative correlation with the Baluti Shale Formation of northern Iraq. The formation has been recognized by its argillaceous and evaporitic characteristics in
contrast to the calcareous strata of the underlying Mulussa and the overlying Ubaid formations. The formation, however, was deposited in coastal evaporitic
lagoons on the evidence of the oolitic and peloidal limestone facies, with a greater marine influence than the
Nijili Formation.
The Beduh Shale Formation (InduanOlenekian)
of northern Iraq has a distinctive purple color, which
makes it an excellent marker. The type locality for this
formation lies in the Amadia district of northern Iraq
(Figure 1), where it consists of red-brown and purplish
shales and marls, some silty with subordinate ribs of
limestone with sandy streaks. According to Bellen et al.
(1959), the red color of this formation may be related to
the indirect influence of Triassic vulcanicity. In the
subsurface, the formation is more arenaceous and calcareous and is probably thicker than its surface exposures. The characteristic red and purple colors are not
well developed in the subsurface.
The Baluti Shale Formation (Rhatian) of northern
Iraq belongs also to this facies. In its type locality south
522
The Humrat Maain Formation of Jordan is exposed only along the course of the Wadi Zerqa Maain
River (Figure 1). This formation consists of reddish,
limonitic, and gray-greenish sandstone interbedded
with varicolored clayey sandstone and claystone with
mud cracks, ripple marks, rain prints, trace fossils, intercalations of dark shale rich in plant remains, and
partly dolomitized rocks. The formation contains the
same fossils described from the Mirga Mir Formation
(Basha, 1981).
The finding of the same Lower Triassic conodonts
of the Pachycladina-Hadrodontina assemblages in the
upper part of the Yamin Formation and in the lower
part of the Zafir Formation, and in the upper part of
the Humrat Maain Formation, suggests an age equivalency between these formations across the Levant
(Druckman et al., 1982). Both of the Yamin and the
Zafir formations are composed of interbedded sandstone, shale, and limestone, totaling 430759 m (1411
2490 ft) thickness. Judging from the lithofacies types,
the fossil content, and the sheet geometry of the sandstone units, Druckman et al. (1982) assumed that these
strata were deposited in a nearshore marine setting,
where the mixed clastic-carbonate facies were laid
down in the littoral zone or in lagoons, whereas the
sand bodies accumulated as barriers.
The Ammanus Shale Formation in central Syria,
despite having the term shale associated with its name,
consists of intercalated gray sandstone and argillite that
grade into limestone. The formation becomes more
calcareous upward, and at its top, dolomitized limestone appears. In the subsurface, Pseudomontis clarai
Emmrich has been found in the formation (Bebeshev
et al., 1988).
523
Figure 3. Boltons Ship, the spectacular exposure of the Mulussa Formation in the western desert of Iraq. The exposure is named
after C. M. G. Bolton, head of the Geology Department, Baghdad University, during the 1950s and 1960s. For a scale, see the person
standing in the middle of the photo.
SEQUENCE STRATIGRAPHY
The transgression that started the deposition of the
Khuff Formation (and its equivalent the Chia Zairi
Formation in the Mesopotamian basin) marked the
establishment of a shallow carbonate platform over all
the northern parts of Arabia that was bordered by a
clastic province (Sharland et al., 2001). The low subsidence rates and the consequent low rates of development of accommodation space eventually led to the
deposition of fairly clean limestones, but no deepmarine shale, even in the northeastern parts of the
basin.
The Triassic strata of the northern extension of the
Arabian plate display a series of long-lived highstand
systems tract successions, beginning with the base of
the Khuff Formation (or its equivalent in the Mesopotamian basin). The succession can be divided into at
least four depositional sequences (Sharland et al., 2001)
(Figure 5).
Some of these sequences represent a basal transgressive systems tract in which carbonate and evaporite
525
Figure 4. Lithostratigraphic comparison between the Triassic sections from selected wells in the northern parts of the Arabian plate
(compiled and modified from Druckman et al., 1982; Andrews, 1992; Sharland et al., 2001).
526
Figure 4. Continued.
Sadooni and Alsharhan
527
Kurra Chine, and Mulussa formations, provide evidence of interruptions in the sedimentation.
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
Fine-grained clastics, with carbonate-evaporite deposits of restricted shelf, lagoonal, and tidal-flat origin,
accumulated in a rather narrow northwest-southeast
trending belt in eastern Iraq (Buday, 1980). These
shallow-marine shelf deposits can be traced into similar
shallow-marine carbonate and shale or mudstone shelf
facies in Iran (Figure 6).
Early Triassic
Middle Triassic
The overall sedimentary sequence deposited on the
northern Arabian platform during the Early and Middle
Triassic is essentially a continuation of the sedimentary
cycle that began during the Late Permian. Sedimentation continued to be controlled by the Mardin, Khleissia, and Rutbah highs. The Rutbah and Khleissia highs
were still separated by the Euphrates Anah trough
during the remaining part of the cycle. At times, intervening areas between the Mardin and Khleissia highs
were also exposed. This ridge was subjected to erosion
and was fringed on its northeastern side by the large
Mesopotamian basin that extended from Turkey in the
northwest to central Iran in the southeast. To the west
of the Rutbah Khleissia ridge, the Palmyra Sinjar
trough was connected to the Mediterranean Tethys to
the west and continued to subside (Alsharhan and
Nairn, 1997).
The Lower Triassic depositional facies is characterized by abundant clastics over most of the region
east of the RutbahKhleissia high, indicating an episode of regression in the Tethys, probably related to
uplift as the precursor of the initiation of the NeoTethys rifts. This uplift is well documented in the central part of the craton along the RutbahKhleissia high.
Middle Triassic rocks conformably overlie Lower Triassic beds and were deposited during a major marine
transgression, which interrupted the formerly dominant clastic regime with carbonate sedimentation. The
Middle Triassic carbonate shelf deposits (east of the
RutbahKhleissia high) formed in very shallow-marine
conditions (Alsharhan and Nairn, 1997). A restricted
shelf of carbonates and evaporites with lagoons, tidal
flats, and sabkhas dominated the central part of the Arabian platform and the Palmyra Sinjar and Euphrates
Anah troughs. The facies grade into variably textured
carbonates with some shales of shallow-marine to shelfmargin origin in Iran, northern Iraq, southern Turkey,
and most of Syria and Jordan. Close to the western edge
of the Afro-Arabian massif, the Middle Triassic depositional facies is represented by continental sandstones intercalated with nearshore sandstones and shales
(Figure 7).
The Middle Triassic evaporites, with younger Triassic evaporites, form an effective regional seal to major
gas accumulations in the underlying Permian carbonate
and Lower Triassic clastic reservoirs. In the Palmyra
Sinjar and EuphratesAnah troughs in Lebanon and
Sadooni and Alsharhan
529
530
Figure 6. The main depositional environments of the Early Triassic rocks in the northern Arabian plate.
531
Figure 7. The main depositional environments of the Middle Triassic rocks in the northern Arabian plate.
Syria, the basal Triassic sequence includes shales deposited in the central parts of the troughs, which grade
into fluviatile and deltaic sands on the southern flanks
of the troughs. The basinal shales, with the shales in the
underlying Paleozoic section, could act as sources of
hydrocarbons for the reservoir sands deposited on the
southern margin of the troughs. The overlying Triassic
evaporites could act as an effective seal for such hydrocarbon accumulations.
Late Triassic
Regional instability began during the Late Triassic and
ended the stable shelf conditions, which had persisted
on the northern Arabian platform throughout the
Paleozoic and into the Middle Triassic. This instability
(recorded by rapid lateral facies changes, volcanic
activity, and, in places, metamorphism) developed in
response to the opening of Neo-Thethys (Sharief,
1983). The western Taurus basin originated in the
Early Middle Triassic, as indicated by the onset of
volcanism in the Bassit-Amanos areas of Turkey and in
Cyprus (Ponikarov et al., 1967). In the eastern Zagros,
basin development began in the Liassic (Furst, 1970).
Following the regional regression at the beginning
of the Late Triassic, a major marine transgression reached
far beyond the southern and southwestern limits of the
Early to Middle Triassic seas. The whole stable shelf
area of Iraq was flooded by the Tethyan Sea (Buday,
1980), with the shoreline extending into northern
Saudi Arabia, where continental to littoral clastic sediments were deposited. The Rutbah Khleissia ridge
system was also submerged by this transgression. Compared with the areally reduced Early Triassic basins,
with their shaly sedimentation affected by a terrigenous supply, the Upper Triassic strata of Iraq are mostly calcareous and evaporitic in nature. The lack of a
terrigenous supply testifies to the remoteness of the
continental areas during the Late Triassic.
Continuous carbonate deposition in southeastern
Turkey started in the Late Triassic and continued until
the end of the Jurassic (Cordey, 1971). As much as
1000 m (3280 ft) of carbonates and evaporites were
deposited. Similarly, in western Syria and the Palmyrides, a thick carbonate-anhydrite sequence (with some
salt) was deposited over the Lower to Middle Triassic
clastics and limestones of the Palmyra and Sinjar troughs.
Here, as in southeastern Turkey, the carbonate-evaporate
depositional sequence continued until the Late Jurassic
(Figure 8).
532
533
Figure 8. The main depositional environments of the Late Triassic rocks in the northern Arabian plate.
535
CONCLUSIONS
Compilation of the available data on the Triassic strata
of the northern parts of the Arabian plate from the
limited outcrops and subsurface sections enabled classifying them according to their environmental settings.
These settings were then compared with the German
Triassic system to facilitate regional correlation and
examine their hydrocarbon potentials. The major conclusions of this study are as follows.
1. Triassic strata of the northern extensions of the
Arabian plate mark the establishment of the NeoTethys passive margin.
2. They consist of more than 2000 m (6500 ft) of rock,
divided among several depositional settings that are
comparable with the German Triassic rocks and have
evidence of the same eustatic sea level changes they
represent. They were deposited on a carbonate platform surrounded by clastic-evaporitic lagoons and
continental clastic settings.
3. The climate during the Triassic varied between semiarid conditions, in which cyclic sabkha-capped facies
accumulated only on the inner platform, and an arid
phase with major evaporite drawdown, resulting in
extension of the inner platform cyclicity into intrashelf basin center evaporite cycles.
4. The succession may be divided into four highfrequency sequences that were dominated by highstand systems tract carbonates and highstand systems
tract lowstand systems tract evaporites and clastics.
5. A group of extension-related structures began to
develop in the platform regions during the Middle
Late Triassic as a result of the extensive rifting. These
structures are important in terms of hydrocarbon
exploration, as they resulted in abrupt changes in
thickness and facies over short distances in southeastern Turkey, northern Syria, and Iraq.
6. The Triassic succession of the northern Arabian platform includes reservoir and cap-rock lithologies and
is considered the primary objective of future hydrocarbon exploration in eastern Syria and northwestern Iraq. These include the Mulussa Formation and
the Kurra Chine dolomite in northwestern Iraq and
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