Tarif Sawaf

Tectonic map and geologic evolution of Syria: The role of GIS

This paper was published in the journal The Leading Edge by the Society of Exploration Geophysicists. SEG retains the copyright to this paper. See also: http://www.edge-online.org/; http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/syria/brew_tle_2000.html

Mesozoic and Cenozoic deformation inferred from seismic stratigraphy in the southwestern intracontinental Palmyride fold-thrust belt, Syria

This paper was published in the Geological Society of America Bulletin. The Geological Society of America retains the copyright to this paper. Geological Society of America, P.O. Box 9140 , Boulder, CO 80301-9140 USA See also: http://www.geosociety.org/; http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/syria/chaimov_gsa_bull_1992.html

Continental Margin Evolution of the Northern Arabian Platform in Syria

Copyright AAPG 1993, reprinted by permission of the AAPG whose permission is required for further use. See also: http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/syria/best_1993.html

Structure and tectonic development of the Ghab basin and the Dead Sea fault system, Syria

We examine the structure and evolution of the Ghab basin that formed on the active, yet poorly understood, northern segment of the Dead Sea transform fault system. The basin formed in Plio-Quaternary time at a complex step-over zone on the fault. Subsidence occurred along cross-basin and transform-parallel faults in two asymmetric depocentres. The larger depocentre in the south of the basin is asymmetric towards the east, the margin along which most active transform displacement apparently occurs. The Syrian Coastal Ranges, located directly west of the Ghab basin, are a consequence of Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic regional compression, heavily modified by the Dead Sea fault system and Ghab basin formation. We prefer a model whereby the Dead Sea fault system in northwest Syria developed in Plio-Quaternary time, consistent with previously proposed models of two-phase Dead Sea fault system movement and Red Sea spreading.

Seismic reflection structure of intracratonic palmyride fold-thrust belt and surrounding Arabian platform, Syria

Copyright 1990, AAPG. Reprinted by permission of the AAPG whose permission is required for further use. See also: http://aapgbull.geoscienceworld.org/; http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/syria/mcbride_aapg_1990.html

Tectonic evolution of the Northern Arabian Plate in Western Syria

The primary geologic structures of the northern Arabian plate in western Syria include the intracontinental Palmyride mountain belt and the interplate boundary of the Dead Sea transform fault system. The Palmyride belt strikes NE and is sandwiched between two relatively stable crustal blocks of the Arabian platform: the Aleppo plateau in the north and the Rutbah uplift in the south. The Palmyrides were the site of an early Mesozoic aulacogen-type depression that was linked to the Levantine rifted continental margin in the eastern Mediterranean. The location of this postulated aulacogen may be genetically associated with a crustal zone of weakness, possibly a Proterozoic suture and/or shear zone, between the Aleppo and Rutbah crustal blocks. Uplift of the intraplate Palmyride depression initiated in the Late Cretaceous, penecontemporaneous with emplacement of ophiolites along the nearby Arabian plate boundaries in southern Turkey and western Iran. More intense episodes of shortening during the Cenozoic also appear to be temporally related to collision along nearby plate boundaries, implying that stresses have been transmitted hundreds of kilometers across the northern Arabian platform. The style and intensity of the inversion process vary considerably along the strike of the Palmyrides and involves both shortening by folding and reverse faulting as well as translation and rotation along numerous strike-slip faults. Such folds and faults clearly define at least three structurally distinct small crustal blocks within the Palmyrides. Shortening of about 20% in the southwest Palmyrides near Lebanon gradually dies out to the northeast near the intersection of the Palmyrides with the NW-trending Euphrates depression. Depth to metamorphic basement beneath the Palmyra mountain belt increases from 9 km in the northeast to 11 km in the southwest, compared with a basement depth of about 6–8 km in the adjacent Arabian platform, indicating that shortening along the Palmyrides has been insufficient to invert the previously extended basement morphology. Finally, slip measurements along the Dead Sea fault and estimates of crustal shortening in the Palmyride belt indicate that the northern segment of the seismogenic active Dead Sea fault in Lebanon and Syria is considerably younger (Pliocene) than the southern part (Miocene).

Bouguer gravity trends and crustal structure of the Palmyride Mountain belt and surrounding northern Arabian platform in Syria

Copyright 1990, Geological Society of America. See also: http://dx.doi.org/10.1130%2F0091-7613%281990%29018%3C1235%3ABGTACS%3E2.3.CO%3B2 http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/syria/best_1990.html

Mesozoic-Cenozoic evolution of the intraplate Euphrates fault system, Syria: implications for regional tectonics

A lack of dramatic surface geological structures along the Euphrates River in Syria belie a complex tectonic history revealed by newly released seismic reflection and well data. We document the intraplate Euphrates fault system, characterize the variation in structural style along its 350 km length in Syria, and infer its Mesozoic-Cenozoic tectonic and deformational history. We then relate the deformation of the Euphrates system and other proximate intraplate structures to nearby Arabian plate boundary processes in order to develop a new model for the tectonic evolution of the northern Arabian plate. Throughout most of Mesozoic time, the Euphrates area experienced minor deposition compared to the Palmyride trough to its southwest, and the Sinjar trough to its northeast. During latest Cretaceous time, however, significant sinistral transtension occurred along the length of the Euphrates fault system in Syria, with graben formation especially noteworthy in southeastern Syria. This episode was probably related to events at nearby plate boundaries, and may have reactivated a zone of weakness formed during Pan-African accretion of the Arabian plate. A Palaeogene sag basin formed over the graben system in southeastern Syria. Neogene continental collision along the northern and eastern Arabian plate boundaries caused minor reactivation of the Euphrates fault system in a dextral transpressional sense, in concert with significant inversion and the main phase of uplift of the nearby Palmyride and Sinjar mountains.

Crustal structure of central Syria: The intracontinental Palmyride Mountain belt

An edited version of this paper was published in Tectonophysics by Elsevier Science. Copyright 1992, Elsevier Science. See also: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0040-1951(92)90395-M; http://atlas.geo.cornell.edu/syria/Al-Saad-et-al_1992.html

Stratigraphy and structure of eastern Syria across the Euphrates depression

Abstract A N-S crustal-scale geotransect across the northern Arabian platform in eastern Syria reveals an alternating series of basement uplifts and basins separated by predominantly transpressional fault zones above an effectively uniform crust. Four major tectonic provinces are crossed along a 325 × 100 km corridor that extends from the Iraqi border in the south to the Turkish border in the north: the Rutbah uplift, the Euphrates depression, the Abd el Aziz structural zone, and the Qamichli uplift. These features are the manifestations of reactivated pre-Cenozoic structures that responded to forces acting along nearby Arabian plate boundaries, particularly Cenozoic convergence and collision along the margins of the northern Arabian platform i.e., the Bitlis suture and the East Anatolian fault in southern Turkey and the Zagros suture in Iran and Iraq. The database for this study consists of 3000 km of industry seismic reflection data, 28 exploratory wells, and geologic and Bouguer gravity maps. The deep crustal structure and, in part, the basement geometry along this transect are inferred from two-dimensional modeling of Bouguer gravity, whereas the shallow (about 8 km) structure is constrained primarily by well and seismic data. Features of the geotransect reveal: 1. (1) A relatively uniform crustal column approximately 37 km thick with only minor crustal thinning beneath the Euphrates. Crustal thinning may be slightly more pronounced beneath the Euphrates (about 35 km) to the southeast of the transect where the Bouguer gravity anomaly is slightly higher. 2. (2) Along the Euphrates depression, ongoing subsidence, which began during the Late Cretaceous, resulted in the deposition of at least 3 km of Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic rocks. The structural complexity of the Paleozoic and most of the Mesozoic sedimentary sections along the transect contrasts markedly with a relatively simple, flat-lying Cenozoic section along most of the transect. A notable exception is the Abd el Aziz uplift, where Cenozoic rocks are strongly deformed. 3. (3) While Euphrates subsidence continued throughout the Cenozoic, the inversion of the E-W-trending Abd el Aziz structure into a fault-bounded tilted block began in the Miocene, perhaps as a response to the last episode of intense Miocene collision along the nearby Bitlis and Zagros suture zones.