Gharif Formation

Last updated
Gharif Formation
Stratigraphic range: Permian
Type Geological formation
Unit of Haushi Group
Sub-units
  • Upper Member
  • Middle Member
  • Lower Member
Underlies Khuff Formation
Overlies Al Khlata Formation
Thickness157 m (518.1 ft)
Location
Coordinates 55°31’00”E, 19°17’45”N [1]
CountryFlag of Oman.svg  Oman
Oman relief location map.jpg
Red pog.svg
Gharif Formation (Oman)

The Gharif Formation is a geologic formation in Oman. It preserves fossils dating back to the Permian period. The Gharif clastic reservoirs are an important hydrocarbon production unit, and the formation is a major producing oil and gas reservoir in Oman. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Stratigraphy

The subsurface Gharif Formation has been informally divided into 3 members (Lower, Middle and Upper) by geologists from Petroleum Development Oman. Though these members may be difficult to distinguish in certain localities due to rapid lateral facies changes, differential incision, salt movement or erosion, multiple studies have shown that these 3 members can be correlated on a regional scale. [1] [3] [4]

Lower Gharif Member

The lower member is about 65 m (214.5 ft) thick in north and central Oman. It has been split into 3 submembers: [1] [3] [4]

Middle Gharif Member

The middle member is about 85 m (280.5 ft) thick in north and Central Oman. It contains the following 3 informal units (from the base up): [1] [3]

Upper Gharif Member

The upper member is about 90 m (295 ft) thick in north and central Oman. Informally, it has been split into the ‘Upper Gharif Sandstone’ and ‘Upper Gharif Red Beds’. [1] [3]

Fossil content

Amphibians

Amphibians reported from the Gharif Formation
GenusSpeciesLocalityStratigraphic memberMaterialNotesImages
Aistopoda?Indeterminate Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] A vertebra. [5] Potential aistopod fossil.
Lepospondyli Indeterminate Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] Tooth plate. [5] A lepospondyl.

Fish

Acanthodians

Acanthodians reported from the Gharif Formation
GenusSpeciesLocalityStratigraphic memberMaterialNotesImages
Acanthodii Indeterminate Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] Scales. [5] Undeterminable acanthodian remains.

Bony fish

Bony fish reported from the Gharif Formation
GenusSpeciesLocalityStratigraphic memberMaterialNotesImages
Gnathorhiza G. sp. Al Wusta Region. [5] [6] Middle Gharif. [5] [6] Vomer & pterygoid. [5] A lungfish.
GnathorhizaDB.jpg
Palaeoniscoidei Indeterminate Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] Scales. [5] Undeterminable palaeoniscoid remains.

Cartilaginous fish

Cartilaginous fish reported from the Gharif Formation
GenusSpeciesLocalityStratigraphic memberMaterialNotesImages
Lissodus L. sp. Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] A tooth. [5] A hybodont.
Lissodus fossil cropped.png
Triodus T. sp. Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] Isolated teeth. [5] A xenacanth.
Triodus1db.jpg
Wurdigneria W. sp. Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] Isolated teeth. [5] A xenacanth.

Invertebrates

Invertebrates reported from the Gharif Formation
GenusSpeciesLocalityStratigraphic memberMaterialNotesImages
Conchostraca Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] A clam shrimp.
" Spirorbis " Al Wusta Region. [5] Middle Gharif. [5] A spirorbiform microconchid.

Plants

Plants reported from the Gharif Formation
GenusSpeciesLocalityStratigraphic memberMaterialNotesImages
Arberia A. sp.Huqf area. [7] Isolated fertile structure. [7] A glossopteridale.
Arberiopsis A. sp.Huqf area. [7] Isolated fertile structure. [7] A glossopteridale.
Baieroxylon B. implexumHuqf area. [7] [8] Wood. [7] [8] A ginkgoale.
Calamites C. gigasHuqf area. [7] Medullar casts. [7] A horsetail.
Jardin des plantes Paris trunk Calamites gigas1.JPG
Calamostachys C. dumasiiHuqf area. [7] Medullar casts. [7] A horsetail.
Calamostachys sp 65.JPG
Cathaysiopteris C. whiteiHuqf area. [7] Leaves. [7] A gigantopterid.
Comia C. sp.Huqf area. [7] Leaves. [7] A probable seed plant.
Cyclodendron C. lesliiHuqf area. [7] A lepidodendrale.
Dadoxylon (Eristophyton)D. (E.) callixyloidesHuqf area. [7] [8] Wood. [7] [8] A conifer, represents a new species.
Gigantonoclea G. lagreliiHuqf area. [7] Leaves. [7] A gigantopterid.
G. sp.Huqf area. [7] A gigantopterid.
Gigantopteris G. sp.Huqf area. [7] Leaves. [7] A gigantopterid.
Glossopteris G. angustifoliaHuqf area. [7] Leaves. [7] A glossopteridale.
Glossopteris angustifolia 255 maf India.jpg
G. brownianaHuqf area. [7] A glossopteridale.
Glossopteris browniana 343.JPG
G. claramarginataHuqf area. [7] A glossopteridale.
G. damudicaHuqf area. [7] A glossopteridale.
G. occidentalisHuqf area. [7] A glossopteridale.
G. taeniopteroidesHuqf area. [7] A glossopteridale.
Lanceolatus L. sp.Huqf area. [7] Female organs. [7] A glossopteridale.
Lepidodendron L. acutangulaHuqf area. [7] Stems. [7] A lepidodendrale.
Lepidodendron reconstruccion.jpg
Lidgettonia L. sp.Huqf area. [7] A glossopteridale.
Otovicia (Walchia)O. (W.) hypnoidesHuqf area. [7] A conifer.
Ernestiodendron filiciforme - Walchia piniformis - Octovicia hypnoides.jpg
Plumsteadia P. sp.Huqf area. [7] Female organs. [7] A glossopteridale.
Prototaxoxylon P. gharifenseHuqf area. [7] [8] Wood. [7] [8]
Sigillaria S. brardiiHuqf area. [7] A lepidodendrale.
Sigillaria1.jpg
Sphenophyllum S. speciosumHuqf area. [7] Macrofossils. [7] A sphenophyllale.
EB1911 Palaeobotany - Sphenophyllum speciosum.jpg
S. sino-coreanumHuqf area. [7] Macrofossils. [7] A sphenophyllale.
Sphenophyllum reconstruccion.png
Tingia T. sp.Huqf area. [7] Leaves. [7] A noeggerathiale.
Tingiostachya T. sp.Huqf area. [7] Fertile cones. [7] A noeggerathiale.
Trigonomyelon T. omanenseHuqf area. [7] [8] Wood. [7] [8] A probable conifer.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of the Capitol Reef area</span>

The exposed geology of the Capitol Reef area presents a record of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in an area of North America in and around Capitol Reef National Park, on the Colorado Plateau in southeastern Utah.

The Keuper is a lithostratigraphic unit in the subsurface of large parts of west and central Europe. The Keuper consists of dolomite, shales or claystones and evaporites that were deposited during the Middle and Late Triassic epochs. The Keuper lies on top of the Muschelkalk and under the predominantly Lower Jurassic Lias or other Early Jurassic strata.

The Eifelian is the first of two faunal stages in the Middle Devonian Epoch. It lasted from 393.3 ± 1.2 million years ago to 387.7 ± 0.8 million years ago. It was preceded by the Emsian Stage and followed by the Givetian Stage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Juan Basin</span> Structural basin in the Southwestern United States

The San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin located near the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. The basin covers 7,500 square miles and resides in northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and parts of Utah and Arizona. Specifically, the basin occupies space in the San Juan, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and McKinley counties in New Mexico, and La Plata and Archuleta counties in Colorado. The basin extends roughly 100 miles (160 km) N-S and 90 miles (140 km) E-W.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allegheny Group</span> Pennsylvanian-age geological unit

The Allegheny Group, often termed the Allegheny Formation, is a Pennsylvanian-age geological unit in the Appalachian Plateau. It is a major coal-bearing unit in the eastern United States, extending through western and central Pennsylvania, western Maryland and West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio. Fossils of fishes such as Bandringa are known from the Kittaning Formation, which is part of the Allegheny Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Estuarine Group</span>

The Great Estuarine Group is a sequence of Middle Jurassic sedimentary rocks deposited in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. The sedimentary sequence was originally named the 'Great Estuarine Series' by geologist John Wesley Judd in 1878. Sedimentary outcrops occur on Skye, Raasay, Eigg and Muck. It comprises a series of shales, clays, silts, mudstones, and sandstones deposited in two drainage basins: the Inner Hebrides basin and the Sea of the Hebrides basin. The sediments are equivalent in age to the Inferior and Great Oolite Groups found in southern England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tambach Formation</span>

The Tambach Formation is an Early Permian-age geologic formation in central Germany. It consists of red to brown-colored sedimentary rocks such as conglomerate, sandstone, and mudstone, and is the oldest portion of the Upper Rotliegend within the Thuringian Forest Basin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Usili Formation</span> Geologic formation in Tanzania

The Usili Formation is a Late Permian geologic formation in Tanzania. It preserves fossils of many terrestrial vertebrates from the Permian, including temnospondyls, pareiasaurs, therapsids and the archosauromorph Aenigmastropheus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Archer City Formation</span> Geologic formation in Texas, United States

The Archer City Formation is a geological formation in north-central Texas, preserving fossils from the Asselian and early Sakmarian stages of the Permian period. It is the earliest component of the Texas red beds, introducing an tropical ecosystem which will persist in the area through the rest of the Early Permian. The Archer City Formation is preceded by the cool Carboniferous swamp sediments of the Markley Formation, and succeeded by the equally fossiliferous red beds of the Nocona Formation. The Archer City Formation was not named as a unique geological unit until the late 1980s. Older studies generally labelled its outcrops as the Moran or Putnam formations, which are age-equivalent marine units to the southwest.

The Arroyo Formation, sometimes termed the Lower Clear Fork Formation, is a geologic formation in Texas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Kungurian stage of the Permian period. It is the lower-most portion of the Clear Fork Group, part of a series of fossiliferous Permian strata in the south-central United States known as the red beds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abo Formation</span> Geological formation in New Mexico

The Abo Formation is a geologic formation in New Mexico. It contains fossils characteristic of the Cisuralian epoch of the Permian period.

The Kettle Point Formation, also known as the Kettle Point (black) Shale, is a geologic formation that consists of thinly laminated, siliciclastic, organic-rich black shale with thin to thick interbeds of organic-poor mudstone. It is largely restricted to the subsurface of southwestern Ontario.

The Vikinghøgda Formation is a geologic formation in Svalbard, Norway. It preserves fossils dating back to the Early Triassic (Griesbachian-Spathian) period. It is split into three members, from oldest to youngest: the Deltadalen Member (Induan), Lusitaniadalen Member (Smithian), and Vendomdalen Member (Spathian). The formation can be found in central Spitsbergen, southern Spitsbergen, as well as the smaller islands of Barentsøya and Edgeøya. The type locality is positioned in the vicinity of Vikinghøgda and Sticky Keep, two low peaks along the southeast edge of Sassendalen in Spitsbergen. The two upper members of the Vikinghøgda Formation were previously grouped together as the Sticky Keep Formation.

One of the major depositional strata in the Himalaya is the Lesser Himalayan Strata from the Paleozoic to Mesozoic eras. It had a quite different marine succession during the Paleozoic, as most parts of it are sparsely fossiliferous or even devoid of any well-defined fossils. Moreover, it consists of many varied lithofacies, making correlation work more difficult. This article describes the major formations of the Paleozoic – Mesozoic Lesser Himalayan Strata, including the Tal Formation, Gondwana Strata, Singtali Formation and Subathu Formation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitehill Formation</span> Early Permian geological formation in South Africa

The Whitehill Formation, alternatively written as White Hill Formation and formerly known as White Band or Whitehill or White Hill Member, is a regional Early Permian geologic formation belonging to the Ecca Group in the southeastern ǁKaras Region of southeastern Namibia and Eastern, Northern and Western Cape provinces of South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gai-As Formation</span>

The Gai-As Formation is an Early to Middle Permian geologic formation correlated with the Ecca Group and designated "Ecca" Group, because it does not belong to the Karoo, in the southwestern Kunene Region and northern Erongo Region of northwestern Namibia. The Gai-As Formation represents the second-oldest sedimentary unit of the Huab Basin, overlying the Huab Formation. The formation was deposited in a fluvial to lacustrine setting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Junggar Basin</span> Sedimentary basin in Xinjiang, China

The Junggar Basin, also known as the Dzungarian Basin or Zungarian Basin, is one of the largest sedimentary basins in Northwest China. It is located in Dzungaria in northern Xinjiang, and enclosed by the Tarbagatai Mountains of Kazakhstan in the northwest, the Altai Mountains of Mongolia in the northeast, and the Heavenly Mountains in the south. The geology of Junggar Basin mainly consists of sedimentary rocks underlain by igneous and metamorphic basement rocks. The basement of the basin was largely formed during the development of the Pangea supercontinent during complex tectonic events from Precambrian to late Paleozoic time. The basin developed as a series of foreland basins – in other words, basins developing immediately in front of growing mountain ranges – from Permian time to the Quaternary period. The basin's preserved sedimentary records show that the climate during the Mesozoic era was marked by a transition from humid to arid conditions as monsoonal climatic effects waned. The Junggar basin is rich in geological resources due to effects of volcanism and sedimentary deposition. According to Guinness World Records it is a land location remotest from open sea with great-circle distance of 2,648 km from the nearest open sea at 46°16′8″N86°40′2″E.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rub' al Khali Basin</span> Large basin containing the Rub al Khali desert

The Rub' al Khali Basin or ar-Rubʻ al-Khālī / ar-rubʿ al-ḵālī Basin, Arabic for "Empty Quarter Basin", is a major endorheic sedimentary basin of approximately 560,000 square kilometres (220,000 sq mi) in southern Saudi Arabia, northeastern Yemen, southeastern Oman and southeasternmost United Arab Emirates. The onshore foreland on Mesozoic rift basin is geographically defined by the eponymous Rub' al Khali and covers the regions of Najran and Riyadh and the Eastern Province. The basin is geologically bound by the Central Arabian Arch in the north, the Oman Thrust in the east, the Northern Hadramaut Arch in the south, and the Arabian Shield in the west. Politically, the southwestern boundary is formed by the border with Yemen and the border with Oman forms the southeastern boundary.

The Khuff Formation is a geologic formation in Oman and Saudi Arabia. It preserves fossils dating back to the Permian and early Triassic periods.

Reesodus is an extinct genus of hybodontiform. It lived from the Tournaisian age of the Early Carboniferous to the Wordian age of the Permian, and remains have been found in England, Russia and Oman. The generic name honors Jan Rees, who first realized that the fossils belong to a distinct genus.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Osterloff, Peter; Al-Harthy, Aida; Penney, Randall; Spaak, Pieter; Williams, Glen; Al-Zadjali, Farida; Jones, Neil; Knox, Robert; Stephenson, Michael; Oliver, Guy; Al-Husseini, Moujahed (January 2004). "Depositional sequences of the Gharif and Khuff Formations, subsurface Interior Oman". GeoArabia: 83–147.
  2. Alsop, D. B.; Al Ghammari, M.; Al Abri, A.; Al Mahrooqi, A.; Al Rawahi, H.; Salem, H. (2013-10-17). "Reservoir architecture of the Gharif Formation outcrops in the Southern Huqf area, Sultanate of Oman". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 387 (1): 111–133. doi:10.1144/sp387.8. ISSN   0305-8719.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Fer Guit, Mohamed Al-Lawati, Peter (1995). "Seeking New Potential in the Early-Late Permian Gharif Play, West Central Oman: ABSTRACT". AAPG Bulletin. 79. doi:10.1306/8D2B2899-171E-11D7-8645000102C1865D. ISSN   0149-1423. S2CID   131601681.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. 1 2 Blendinger, W.; van Vliet, A.; Hughes Clarke, M. W. (January 1990). "Updoming, rifting and continental margin development during the Late Palaeozoic in northern Oman". Geological Society, London, Special Publications. 49 (1): 27–37. doi:10.1144/gsl.sp.1992.049.01.03. ISSN   0305-8719.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 Schultze, Hans-Peter; Soler-Gijon, Rodrigo; Hampe, Oliver; Heward, Alan (July 2008). "Vertebrates from the Gharif Formation, Lower Permian, of Oman". Faunas and Palaeoenvironments of the Late Palaeozoic. Special Publication of 5th Symposium on Permo-Carboniferous Faunas: 41–42.
  6. 1 2 Skrzycki, P. (2016-01-15). "The westernmost occurrence of Gnathorhiza in the Triassic, with a discussion of the stratigraphic and palaeogeographic distribution of the genus". Fossil Record. 19 (1): 17–29. doi: 10.5194/fr-19-17-2016 . ISSN   2193-0074.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 Berthelin, M.; Broutin, J.; Kerp, H.; Crasquin-Soleau, S.; Platel, J.-P.; Roger, J. (July 2003). "The Oman Gharif mixed paleoflora: a useful tool for testing Permian Pangea reconstructions". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 196 (1–2): 85–98. doi:10.1016/S0031-0182(03)00314-6.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Berthelin, M.; Vonzenin-Serra, C.; Broutin, Jean (November 2004). "Phytogeographic and climatic implications of Permian woods discovered in Oman (Arabian Peninsula)". Palaeontographica Abteilung B. 268: 4–6.