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The geology of the Persian Gulf‐Gulf of Oman Region: A synthesis
Author(s) -
Ross David A.,
Uchupi Elazar,
White Robert S.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
reviews of geophysics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 8.087
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1944-9208
pISSN - 8755-1209
DOI - 10.1029/rg024i003p00537
Subject(s) - geology , eurasian plate , peninsula , cretaceous , neogene , paleontology , diapir , evaporite , subduction , pleistocene , tectonics , basement , collision zone , mesozoic , oceanography , sedimentary rock , archaeology , structural basin , history
During the Mesozoic most of the Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, south‐western Iran, and eastern Iraq constituted the Arabian platform. Deformation of the Musandam Peninsula in the Late Cretaceous and mid‐Tertiary by compression (subduction) from the east and southwest, collision of the Arabian platform and Eurasian plate along the Zagros Crush zone during the Oligocene or early Miocene, and emplacement of the Zagros Mountains by gravitational sliding during the Neogene and Pleistocene have reduced the platform area to the Persian Gulf. Other factors that contributed to the reduction of the Arabian platform include the uplift of the Arabian Peninsula during the opening of the Red Sea in the Tertiary, tectonism of the Infracambrian Hormuz salt, upwarp of the platform sediment cover by basement uplift and/or salt tectonics, and a 600‐ to 400‐m drop in sea level since the Cretaceous. At present, tectonism in the region is restricted to the northern edge of the Gulf of Oman where the Arabian plate is subducting the Eurasian plate from the south and to the Zagros Crush zone where the Arabian and Eurasian plates are colliding with one another.