Geological and Seismic Evidence for the Tectonic Evolution of the NE Oman Continental Margin and Gulf of Oman GEOSPHERE, V
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Research Paper GEOSPHERE Geological and seismic evidence for the tectonic evolution of the NE Oman continental margin and Gulf of Oman GEOSPHERE, v. 17, no. X Bruce Levell1, Michael Searle1, Adrian White1,*, Lauren Kedar1,†, Henk Droste1, and Mia Van Steenwinkel2 1Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3AN, UK https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02376.1 2Locquetstraat 11, Hombeek, 2811, Belgium 15 figures ABSTRACT Arabian shelf or platform (Glennie et al., 1973, 1974; Searle, 2007). Restoration CORRESPONDENCE: [email protected] of the thrust sheets records several hundred kilometers of shortening in the Late Cretaceous obduction of the Semail ophiolite and underlying thrust Neo-Tethyan continental margin to slope (Sumeini complex), basin (Hawasina CITATION: Levell, B., Searle, M., White, A., Kedar, L., Droste, H., and Van Steenwinkel, M., 2021, Geological sheets of Neo-Tethyan oceanic sediments onto the submerged continental complex), and trench (Haybi complex) facies rocks during ophiolite emplace- and seismic evidence for the tectonic evolution of the margin of Oman involved thin-skinned SW-vergent thrusting above a thick ment (Searle, 1985, 2007; Cooper, 1988; Searle et al., 2004). The present-day NE Oman continental margin and Gulf of Oman: Geo- Guadalupian–Cenomanian shelf-carbonate sequence. A flexural foreland basin southwestward extent of the ophiolite and Hawasina complex thrust sheets is sphere, v. 17, no. X, p. 1– 22, https:// doi .org /10.1130 /GES02376.1. (Muti and Aruma Basin) developed due to the thrust loading. Newly available at least 150 km across the Arabian continental margin. The obduction, which seismic reflection data, tied to wells in the Gulf of Oman, suggest indirectly spanned the Cenomanian to Early Maastrichtian (ca 95–72 Ma; Searle et al., Science Editor: David E. Fastovsky that the trailing edge of the Semail Ophiolite is not rooted in the Gulf of 2004; Searle, 2007), resulted in flexure of the crust and formation of the Late Associate Editor: Andrea Fildani Oman crust but is truncated by an ENE-dipping extensional fault parallel to Cretaceous Muti and Aruma foreland basin, southwest of the advancing thrusts the coastline. This fault is inferred to separate the Semail ophiolite to the SW (Fig. 1: Robertson, 1988; Robertson 1987a, 1987b; Boote et al., 1990; Warburton Received 29 November 2020 from in situ oceanic Gulf of Oman crust to the NE. It forms the basin margin to et al., 1990; Ali and Watts, 2009; Ali et al., 2013; Ali et al., 2020). A negative Revision received 23 February 2021 Accepted 11 May 2021 a “hinterland” basin formed atop the Gulf of Oman crust, in which 5 km of Late Bouguer gravity anomaly in the “Sohar basin” offshore north Oman was inter- Cretaceous deep-water mudstones accumulated together with 4 km of Mio- preted to be the response of a Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic sedimentary cene and younger deep-water mudstones and sandstones. Syndepositional basin at least 10 km thick (Ravaut et al., 1997, 1998). This “hinterland” basin folding included Paleocene–Eocene folds on N-S axes, and Paleocene to Oli- (Mann et al., 1990) appears to be volumetrically similar in size to the fore- gocene growth faults with roll-over anticlines, along the basin flank. Pliocene land basin but is narrower, deeper, and has currently active (gravitational) compression formed, or tightened, box folds whose axes parallel the modern faulting. The onshore record of this basin is restricted to patchy outcrops coast with local south-vergent thrusts and reversal of the growth faults. This along the Batinah Plain (Fig. 2) of latest-Cretaceous deep-water sediments. Pliocene compression resulted in large-scale buckling of the Cenozoic section, Shallow-marine Paleocene–Eocene limestones unconformably overlie these truncated above by an intra-Pliocene unconformity. A spectacular 60-km-long, sediments and onlap all older units (Glennie et al., 1974; Mann et al., 1990). Eocene(?) to Recent, low-angle, extensional, gravitational fault, down-throws These rocks are exposed all around the large (60-km-wavelength) Jebel Akhdar the upper basin fill to the north. The inferred basement of the hinterland basin and Saih Hatat anticlines (Searle, 2007). Along the southwest flank of these is in situ Late Cretaceous oceanic lithosphere that is subducting northwards mountains, these rocks show northwest-southeast–aligned fold axes indicat- beneath the Makran accretionary prism. ing minor, Late Eocene or younger, northeast-southwest shortening. In the coastal region around Muscat, between Ras al Hamra and Bandar Khayran (Fig. 2), these Paleogene rocks show large-scale box folds that have axes ■ INTRODUCTION aligned north-northwest–south-southeast almost at right-angles to the Late Cretaceous fold trend (Fournier et al., 2006). The Oman Mountains spectacularly document the Late Cretaceous Although the geometry and timing of the onshore Late Cretaceous thrust obduction of the Semail Ophiolite complex and underlying thrust sheets of sheets and the stratigraphy of the post-obduction latest-Cretaceous clastic and Neo-Tethyan oceanic rocks (Haybi and Hawasina complexes). This obduction Paleocene–Eocene limestone cover are well known, the northeastern extent of was from northeast to southwest over the Permian–Mesozoic carbonates of the the onshore geology into the Gulf of Oman (also known as the Sea of Oman) remains poorly known. Major tectonic questions concerning this basin remain, including: (1) Is the Semail ophiolite thrust sheet rooted into the Gulf of Oman Bruce Levell https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7414-1565 This paper is published under the terms of the *Now at British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, UK crust, or is it detached? (2) What was the cause of the variously oriented com- CC-BY-NC license. †Now at School of Earth Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3FX, UK pressional anticlines formed during the Cenozoic? (3) What is the geometry © 2021 The Authors GEOSPHERE | Volume 17 | Number X Levell et al. | Tectonic evolution of NE Oman continental margin Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-pdf/doi/10.1130/GES02376.1/5386535/ges02376.pdf 1 by guest on 01 October 2021 Research Paper 54°E 56°E 40°E 60°E 30°N Musandam Iran 20°N Figure 1. Study area and structural map with contours in km below sea level of the depths 26°N 26 to the base of the Foreland Basin and Hinter- 1000 km 2 km 50°N land Basin. In both cases, the contours are on 5 km 5 6 km 4 km Dibba surfaces close to the base of the post-obduc- tion sedimentary sequences. In the composite Dubai 3 km Fiqa/Pabdeh/Fars Foreland Basin to the west, Fujairah the mapped surface is close to the Wasia/Aruma Fig. 2 & 12 N break (Fig. 3) and is based on the Top-Thamama 12 km Gulf of Oman map of Boote et al. (1990) and the Natih “E” map W1Hinterland Basin of Terken (1999). Note that the Foreland Basin extended all the way to the southeast along the Abu Dhabi frontal thrust, including to the east of the Maradi W2 10 km fault zone (MFZ). The area east of the MFZ has suffered late (Plio-Pleistocene) uplift (Filbrandt 8 km 6 km Qurm et al., 2006) on the order of 1 km or less. Irre- 24°N 4 km 4 km Line 24°N 6 km W3 spective of later uplift, the foreland basin clearly W4 has a depocenter to the north in the United Arab 2 km4 km Foreland Basin Muscat Emirates (UAE) (Ali and Watts, 2009; Ali et al., 3 km U.A.E. 0 km Rusayl 2013). The Hinterland Basin structural contours Saih Embayment Hatat are minimum depth estimates of the base of the J. Akhdar post-obduction sediments (Late Campanian and J. Nakhl younger), based on seismic data in this study. 2 km Ras al Note that the Hinterland Basin contour interval Hadd is 2 km and that this basin is both substantially Fig. 3 deeper and narrower than the Foreland Basin. The well locations used in this study are shown 1 km (black dots: three offshore and one onshore). The black box is the area of the maps in Figure 12. Saudi Arabia Oman 22°N MFZ 22°N 54°E 56°E 58°E 100 km Ophiolite thrust sheet Autochthon Vertical Fault Sub-ophiolite thrust sheets Thrust Fault of the offshore Oman hinterland basin, and how does its deformation history solutions to these questions by combining the onshore outcrop geology with relate to the poorly constrained Cenozoic onshore deformation? (4) What was offshore data acquired since the work of Ravaut et al. (1997), namely seismic the geometry of the northern margin of the continental portion of the Arabian reflection data and well data. Our study area extends from Sohar to Muscat plate? The Semail ophiolite, by definition, is that section of Late Cretaceous and the adjacent offshore area in the Gulf of Oman (Fig. 1). To the north, the oceanic crust and upper mantle obducted onto and underlain by Arabian United Arab Emirates (UAE) onshore-offshore has been studied by Ali et al. continental crust, whereas any “Gulf of Oman oceanic crust” is in situ and not (2020). The eastern boundary of the study areas is the north-south–aligned underlain by continental crust. Thus, it is important to ascertain how far off- “Qurm line” (Fig. 2; new name). This geological boundary in the offshore, west shore the continental basement extends beneath the overlying Cenozoic rocks. of Muscat, delimits the Saih Hatat metamorphic rocks and Muscat ophiolite This paper presents new data concerning the connection between the to the east from the Batinah coast-type hinterland basin geology to the west. onshore and offshore geology along the northeast coast of Oman.