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The Lower Cretaceous Carbonate Slope-To-Platform-Margin Succession Near Khatt, United Arab Emirates: Sedimentary Facies and Depositional Geometries

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The Lower Cretaceous Carbonate Slope-To-Platform-Margin Succession Near Khatt, United Arab Emirates: Sedimentary Facies and Depositional Geometries GeoArabia, Vol. 8, No. 2, 2003 Gulf PetroLink, Bahrain Sedimentary facies and depositional geometries, UAE The Lower Cretaceous carbonate slope-to-platform-margin succession near Khatt, United Arab Emirates: sedimentary facies and depositional geometries Bernd Eilrich and Jürgen Grötsch ABSTRACT The Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous carbonate succession exposed near Khatt provides exceptional conditions for the investigation of sedimentary facies and depositional geometries in a carbonate slope-to-platform-margin setting. A coarsening-upward sequence in Lower Cretaceous limestones indicates decreasing depth of deposition and platform progradation. A pronounced shedding of sediments containing reefal fragments occurs in a slope environment with a well exposed basin-to-platform transect. The carbonate succession consists of mudstone, wackestone, grainstone, coarse rudstone with conglomerate/breccia interbeds, and framestone at the top. The depositional architecture is characterized by the abundance of massive sheet- or channel-like limestone bodies within thinly bedded and generally uniform strata. Quantitative analysis of many carbonate channel deposits and their geometries measured in outcrop led to the distinction of two major types. Type I channel deposits are thin (0.3 to 5 m) but massive, and are commonly irregularly shaped in cross-section. They are as much as 200 m wide. Type I channel deposits are characterized by a wide size range of skeletal and non-skeletal carbonate components. Type II channel deposits, by contrast, are more regularly bedded and have much larger thickness-to-width ratios, in general close to 1:10. Furthermore, they are composed of packstone to grainstone calciturbidite sediments. As with some sheet deposits, they can be correlated through most of the 5.5-km-long Khatt outcrop. Stratigraphically, however, their occurrence is very much restricted, indicating significant alternation of depositional styles as a consequence of changing carbonate platform production and changing sedimentary environments. The data presented here can serve as input for 3-D geological modeling of equivalent depositional environments in the subsurface. They can also be applied to object-based deterministic and stochastic facies modeling. INTRODUCTION Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks are exposed in a thrust belt in the northern part of the United Arab Emirates and in the Musandam Peninsula (Figure 1) along the western front of the Oman Mountains (Ricateau and Riché, 1980; Searle et al., 1983; Glennie, 1995). Traditionally, the Lower Cretaceous limestones are considered as equivalents of the Rayda, Salil, and Habshan formations in the subsurface of Abu Dhabi. The Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary and the Lower Cretaceous limestones are particularly well exposed in the Khatt area close to the United Arab Emirates-Oman border. The limestones may serve as an analog for the hydrocarbon-bearing units in the subsurface of Abu Dhabi and other parts of the Gulf region. The stratigraphy and lithofacies in the Khatt mapping area are shown in Figure 2. Most of the exposed strata are in an approximately vertical position, so ensuring excellent geological exposure. The Khatt outcrops provide a rare opportunity for gathering quantitative data (for example, thickness-width relationships) on depositional geometries in a carbonate slope environment. This paper summarizes the results of a geological mapping survey of the Khatt area at 1:5,000 scale in November and December 1998. The sedimentary and depositional characteristics of massive carbonate bodies (slope-channels and overbank deposits), as well as the investigation of the tectonic setting, were of particular interest for the work presented here. 275 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geoarabia/article-pdf/8/2/275/4553858/eilrich.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 Eilrich and Grötsch LOCATION 56 Oman (Hajar) Mountains 54 E 56 58 Arabian Gulf 27 N IRAN 27 OMAN Strait of Hormuz N Ras Al-Khaimah City Arabian Gulf 25 45' 25 Gulf of Oman 25 Digdagga Town UNITED ARAB EMIRATES Outcrop UNITED area Khatt ARAB OMAN Jiri Plain Town EMIRATES 0 100 23 23 05 km 54 56 58 km 25 30' 56 Figure 1: Location of the study site in the Ras Al-Khaimah Emirate of the United Arab Emirates. The rectangle identifies the outcrop area near to the town of Khatt. Mapping Area The study area is located on the western margin of the Oman (Hajar) Mountains, close to the Strait of Hormuz (Figure 1). The mapping area covers the hilly ground to the north, east, and west of the small town of Khatt, approximately 20 km southeast of Ras Al-Khaimah City in the Ras Al-Khaimah Emirate. The outcrops extend over an area of approximately 8 sq km. Morphologically, the Khatt area marks the transition from the Oman Mountains in the east, to the Jiri Plain in the west. The average elevation of the eastern part of the Jiri Plain is less than 40 m above sea level. The vertical relief of most ridges does not exceed 20 to 40 m but can be as much as 150 m near the eastern boundary of the outcrop area. The ridges typically trend parallel over several kilometers (Figure 3), although they are deeply incised and sometimes completely separated by erosion in places. The Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous succession in the Khatt area has been intensely karstified to form rugged ridge tops. On the ridge flanks, linear karst features (lapiés or karren) prevail over other denudational forms. Vegetation is scarce in this desert environment. Structural Setting The general strike of the Khatt outcrops is N10°E to N25°E, parallel to the western edge of the Oman Mountains and most major morphological and geological units are aligned in this direction. An exception is a large NNW-plunging syncline in the central Khatt area that, together with a minor anticline, disrupts the general geological trend. Its northern flank of the syncline is moderately (40°– 60°) SSW-dipping, whereas the southern flank is only gently inclined to the NNE. Elsewhere in the area, Toland et al. (1993) described the tectonic setting of the Lower Cretaceous rocks in Wadi Haquil. The Jurassic part of the succession is strongly folded and thrusted. In the Khatt outcrops, most of the Lower Cretaceous exposures lack significant tectonic overprinting. Three major fault systems can be distinguished: 276 Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/geoarabia/article-pdf/8/2/275/4553858/eilrich.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 Sedimentary facies and depositional geometries, UAE STRATIGRAPHY, KHATT AREA Strati- Lithological Sheet/Channel Deposits Paleoenvironmental graphy (m) Description Interpretation sition Depo- Thickness Fanglomerates >10 m Pleist 600 Beige, light-gray; predominantly float, rud and bafflestone; corals Reef present in life position; 25 m thick. Reoccurrence of relative fine-grained Decrease in transport energy marks platform Type II channel deposits top sedimentation; calciturbidite flows. Proximal (predominantly packstone). 500 Beige, light-brown, gray pack- Predominance of coarse and very Platform-margin sedimentation; gravity flows acies stones to mudstones; first coarse-grained but relatively thin of reefal fragments and carbonate debris Lower Aptian Lower appearance of ooides; Type I channel deposits; considerable along the platform margin; high-energy 400 275 m thick. width range; frequent stacking of transport; reworking of channel fills. channel deposits; sheet-like Habshan F deposits completely absent. 121 Ma 300 Beige, light-brown, very well Abundant Type I channel deposits; Platform-margin deposition; still relatively bedded, very fine packstone to slight increase in grain-size cf. low-energy transport along with decreasing grainstone, lamination, and lower Salil Calciturbidite Facies. carbonate production on the platform. affluent microstructures such as Upper Salil bioturbation and convolute Barremian Exclusively Type II channel deposits, Lower slope sedimentation; slope steepening LOWER CRETACEOUSLOWER bedding; 75 m thick. QUAT Calciturbidite considerable thickness and width and a further prograding platform margin; range, yet highly uniform grainsize probably highly productive carbonate factory. 127 200 distribution; localized stacking of Ma channel deposits. Sheet-like sedimentation over large areas on lower platform slope due to storm Predominance of sheet-like deposits; scavenging of fine platform sediments; Beige, light-brown, gray; well very fine sediments (mudstone, Bahamian Type alternation of pelagic bedded mudstone to course wackestone); absence of Type II sediments and rare gravity flows (indication Lower grainstone, minor floatstone; channel deposits. of an already prograding platform margin). Salil Facies Barremian 200 m thick. 100 Type I channels prevail; typically ? coarsed-grained, sometimes Steep slope, platform-margin deposition; high- conglomeratic, yet often narrow and energy transport of semiconsolidated carbonate sediments and debris; occurrence thin layers; sheets and Type II Distal White, light-beige/gray; channel deposits characterized by of Type II channel fills marks transition ? predominantly mud and fine sediments (mudstone, toward finer sediments and more regular wackestone; dispersed chert wackestone). sedimentation patterns. Rayda Facies Hauterivian frequent; <40 m thick. 0 UPPER Dark-gray, predominantly JURASSIC packstone. Figure 2: Outcrop characteristics of the geological mapping units, approximate thickness of the Lower Cretaceous facies (mapping units) in the central Khatt area, and stratigraphic succession of the
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