Upper Ordovician Glacial Deposits
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勿 D enis Vaslet U pper O rdovician glacial deposits in S a u d i A rab ia K ingdom . N ew data have been published by D G M R on the early O ne of the niaJor results of the geologic m ap- Paleozoic lithostratigraphy resulting from this w ork as 1:250 ,000- scale geologic m aps and explanatory notes (V aslet and others, 1985: M anivit and others, 1986} W illiam s and others, 1986: Ekren and oth- ers, 1987; V aslet and others, 1987), and these data have been sum - m arized in a D G M R Professional Paper (V aslet, 1989). B efore 1985, the stratigraphy ot low er Paleozoic ro c k s of Saudi A rabia w as based m ostly on the international stratigraphic lexicon (Pow ers, 1968), w hich form alized the earlier w ork ot Thralls and H asson (1956), Steineke and others (1958), and Pow ers and others (1966). In th e schem e proposed by Pow ers (1968), the early Paleozoic succession of central S aud i A rab ia w as sub divided in to tw o form a- tions (fig. 2):(I)the C am brian(?) to E arly O rdovician (A renigian) Saq Sandstone. unconform ably overlying Proterozoic Shield rocks 卷not*thive,vtern Arabia. G rap浪tolite Z,0110tiO17 ifRhU lteS and com posed of conglom eratic and coarse- to fi ne-grained sandstone th at m a n ne and siltstone; and (2) the T abuk Form ation, conform able on the Saq cla-v sedimentation began (ilier ihe ice- Sandstone, consisting of shale and sandstone and subdivided into COP M elted : bY m iddle Llundoveriun time in central seven inform al units considered to range in age from Early O rdovi- A ra b ia a nd 脚 ea吻 Llandoverian tinte in nol-th- cian (A renigian) to E arly D evonian (G edinnian). H elal(1964 , 1965) w estern A rabia . used a different term inology and restricted the Tabuk Form ation to O rdovician deposits. H e defi ned a new form ation for the Tabuk re- Updated paleofacies inaps have been inte- gion Silurian rocks, that is, the Sharaw ra form ation . H elal(1964) also con sidered th e base of the T abuk F orm atio n to b e L lanv irm an B ahafzallah and others (198 1)and A l-Laboun (1982, 1986) proposed the am putation of the upper, the D evonian, part of the Tabuk Form a- tion, that is, the Taw il M em ber of Pow ers (1968). M cC lure 门978) and Y oung (1981)w ere the f ir s t to describe glacial deposits of early Paleozoic age from central Saudi A rabia (Jal as Saqiyah). T hese deposits w ere (partly) m apped by Bram kam p and others (1963) as "brow n to tan sandstone Ithat] transgresses the low er and m iddle parts of the [Tabuk I forination, ' although they w ere not interpreted as such at that tim e. 拼萝 In 1978, M cC lure tentatively referre d t o the L ate O rdovician glaciation previously described in the Sahara (Beuf and others. 1971)although he concluded that insu什icient data w ere available. In tro d u c tio n The existence of Late O rdovician glacial environm ents w as corrobo- rated by a sedim entologic study by C lark-Low es (1980) in the Q asim E arly Paleozoic rocks in Saudi Arabia crop out in three areas。、。 region . This latter author proposed the nom enclature of the "Sarah discontinuous fringe around the Proterozoic A rabian Shield (fig. 1): m em ber" for glacial deposits that form ed part of the "T abuk Form a- (1) in the northw estern (T abuk) area extending w est from the G reat tion" defi ned by Pow ers (1968). N afud (A n N afud) to Jordan, (2) in the central area including the D etailed study of the stratig ra p h ic succession that includes these H a'il and Q asim regions in central A rabia. and (3) in the southern glacial deposits led V aslet(1987a, b. c: 1989) to recognize tw o m a- area extending from Jabal W ajid to N orth Y em en. T hese outcrops jor glacial erosional surfaces that underlie the glacial to periglacial are bounded to the north by the erosional surface beneath the U pper deposits w ithin the "T abuk Form ation" of Pow ers (1968). L ithostrati- C retaceous W asia Form ation and to the northeast and cast by the graphic evidence clearly dem onstrates the need for revision of the erosional surface beneath the U pper Perm ian K huff Form ation. U p- l ab u k F orm atio n . w hich m u st be con sidered an o bsolete u nit in view per Perm ian deposits directly overlie the eastern part of the Shield. of the internationally accepted rules of stratigraphic nom enclature. In southern A rabia, the K huff Form ation is m issing and the Paleozo- N ew I ithostratig raphic units replacing the form er "T abuk Forin a - ic is overlain directly by Jurassic deposits. tion" w ere defined and featured on the D G M R G eoscience M aps P aleozo ic ro cks of cen tral S aud i A rab ia h a ve b een stu d ied in published for the H a'il and Q asim regions, and a synthesis of the detail by the French B ureau de Recherches G 6ologiques et M inj}res currently available lithostratig raphic, sedim entologic, and biostrati- (B RG M ) as part of the Saudi A rabian D irectorate G eneral of M ineral graphic data has been sum m arized in a D G M R Professional P aper R esources' (D G M R ’s ) system atic geologic m apping program of the (V aslet, 1989 ). 如 isod cs, 饰 1. 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Q u atern a ry A bbreviations: conglom ., conglom erate; 姗 J., jacies; fm ., form ation; gr., grained; Tertiary to Q uatern ary v olcanism M a in o il fie ld s in S a u d i A ra b ia 圈 夕 H am m ., H am m annyat; lim est., Ist., Late C retaceo us to Tertiary lim estone; Llandov., L landoverian; m b., 2 0 0 旧 0 O 2 0 0 月0 0 砚而 m em ber;尸recam b., P recam brian; sh., Erosion surface pre-W asia Form ation shale; sst., sandstone; Trans., (Late C retaceo us) } T r a n sitio n .