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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: The Persian Gulf Holocene:
A Useful 
Model
for Ancient Carbonates
Model for Ancient CarbonatesBy
The Post Wisconsian (Wurm) marine transgression into the Persian Gulf Basin
left a varied sedimentary record which is very useful as a The foothills of the Zagros Mountains are marginal to the deeper northeast side
of the Basin where the influence of terrigenous clastic sedimentation is more apparent
than the Arabian side of the Gulf. On the south and southwest the coastal plain
slopes gently under the Gulf as a north and northeast dipping homocline which is a
site of extensive carbonate sedimentation.
The extreme aridity of the coastal plains on the Arabian side provides ideal
conditions for development of supratidal environments in which evaporites are being End_Page 4--------------- formed and dolomitization of carbonates is taking place.
Offshore from the Arabian coast contemporaneous structures such as salt domes
and anticlines cause shoaling which are sites for coral reefs and skeletal banks. The
high energy conditions caused by tides and wave action provide an ideal setting for
development of oolitic and skeletal sand bodies.
The understanding of the sedimentary process and the depositional models in the
Persian Gulf is extremely useful for the interpretation of many ancient carbonate
models such as the Smackover in South Arkansas - N. Louisiana; the Silurian reefs
in the Michigan Basin; and Cretaceous of the Gulf Coast. End_of_Record - Last_Page 5---------------model
for interpretation of
ancient carbonate environments. The Persian Gulf is an epeiric sea which overlies
the continental crust. It is situated between the stable Arabian Shield to the south
and southwest and the mobile Zagros Mountains belt to the northeast. This shallow
basin, less than 100 meters deep, covers 226,100 square kilometers and is situated
within an arid climatic region. As such, it is truly a geosynclinal basin which has
many ancient analogs in the geologic period.