Stratigraphy and Basin Development of the Oligocene-Early Miocene Succession, Southeastern Iraq

Abstract

      The study area is situated in the northern part of the Arabian Plate. The evolution of the Zagros Foreland basin is related to the compressional tectonic system at the beginning of the Tertiary Period.

This study gives an adequate nomenclature for the Oligocene – Early Miocene Sequence is Missan Group. The Buzurgan Oilfield was chosen to represent the stratigraphic column corresponding to that period. These sediments were subdivided into two cycles, where each one ends by a sequence boundary, equivalent to the lowstand siliciclastic residues in the basin center. The first cycle, Paleocene-Oligocene Epoch, was deposited marly limestone with planktonic foraminifera in the basin center during the transgressive and highstand conditions. The Lower Missan Group was deposited during the latest Oligocene lowstand conditions and overlaid the deep marine Oligocene sediments.

The second cycle represented the Early Miocene Epoch (Aquitanian), by which the Euphrates Formation was deposited during the transgressive and highstand conditions and ended by the lowstand conditions sediments in the basin center as an Upper Missan Sandstone Member. These two cycles are conformably bounded by Lower Miocene (Jeribe Formation) and Oligocene (Tarjil Formation).