An historical review of the Quaternary sedimentology of the Gulf (Arabian/Persian Gulf) and its geological impact

Abstract

The Arabian Gulf is a foreland basin that lies between the Arabian Shield and the Zagros fold belt. Today, it is being infilled at its northern head by the Tigris-Euphrates-Karun delta, receives further detrital sediment from Iran on its NE flank, and along its Arabian flank is the site of carbonate and evaporite sedimentation. Other than a few preliminary surveys by officers of the Indian Geological Survey and other minor geological studies associated with archaeological excavations on the Mesopotamian Plains, prior to the 1950s the Quaternary deposits of the region received little attention. However, since the publication of pioneering sedimentological studies in the late 1950s and early 1960s, these sediments have attracted considerable interest. Today, the Arabian Gulf is quoted as a model for foreland basin sedimentation, carbonate evaporite-dune-fan associations and carbonate ramps. It has become a classic area for open-water spontaneous precipitation of calcium carbonate (whitings), formation of hardgrounds, ooid production, dolomite precipitation and, most famously, for the development of shallow-water carbonate-evaporite associations. The surprise discovery of anhydrite forming in the supratidal coastal plain sediments and not in the subaqueous environment of the Gulf had a profound effect on interpretations of ancient evaporites. This discovery caused considerable re-examination and reconsideration of these deposits.

The Euphrates-Tigris-Karun river system: Provenance, recycling and dispersal of quartz-poor foreland-basin sediments in arid climate

“…Bringing water and fertile sediments to an otherwise desert region, the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers allowed humans to settle, develop agricultural practices 10,000 years ago, learn how to domesticate animals, and produce the first book recorded in history, the Epic of Gilgamesh. Mesopotamia, a garden of Eden wounded by decades of war and unending atrocities committed in the name of God, is geologically speaking part of a subsiding foreland basin including the Arabian/Persian Gulf (Evans, 2011). The transition between the fluvial floodplain and the distal marine basin is -or was before the ecosystem collapsed under the impact of extensive drainage works and construction of large dams in Turkish headwaters (Partow, 2001) -the vast marshland well described by the British explorer Wilfred Thesiger in his book Marsh Arabs.…”

High‐resolution facies analysis of a coastal sabkha in the eastern Gulf of Salwa (Qatar): A spatio‐temporal reconstruction

“…The sabkha of Al‐Kharayej stands in genetic contrast to the Mesaieed sabkha in the south‐east of Qatar (Strohmenger & Jameson, 2015), which formed mainly due to coastal progradation fed by high detrital input of ‘calving’ barchan dunes in combination with evaporite pumping and the infiltration of seawater (Shinn, 1973b). Furthermore, it does not entirely comply with the classical model of sabkha formation as developed along the UAE coast, where the shore‐perpendicular accumulation of coastal deposits during high tides or storms in combination with the mid‐Holocene to late Holocene RSL fall results in the progradation of wide, low‐inclination tidal flats into the lagoons and the precipitation of interstitial evaporites in the supratidal zone (Evans, 2011).…”

New data on the sedimentary processes and timing of the initial inundation of Lower Khuzestan (SW Iran) by the Persian Gulf

“…These conditions suggest the former presence of moist soils and an ephemeral shallow groundwater level and local ponds with slowly receding surface waters. Along the Arabian part of the Persian Gulf, the groundwater level is determined, even near the coast, by precipitation and surface inundation, with only very limited horizontal landward movement of seawater (Evans, 2011; Robinson and Gunatilaka, 1991; Wood, 2011). As climatic conditions are similar along both sides of the Persian Gulf, the above-mentioned mechanism is most probably identical along the Iranian coast.…”

“…A generally accepted statement in the literature, first stated over a century ago (Evans, 2011), is that during the Holocene, the northern shoreline of the Persian Gulf has progressed inland due to sea-level rise and later on retreated as a result of the Mesopotamian delta formation. A few scientists held a contrary opinion.…”