Page 129 - Dilmun 29
P. 129
fowzia@alsakhriconsult.com Dr. Fowzia Abdullah Geology of the Arabian Gulf and Failaka Island-Review
Petroleum Geology Consultant
ALNAFT ALSAKHRI consultancy
Geology of the ert gradually sloping at a 1932, two wells were drilled
Arabian Gulf rate of 2m/km from the in Bahra and Burgan where
south-west towards the they were located because
11 eastern shoreline )Fig 2-A(. of rich bituminous subsur-
face show and gas seepag-
There are shallow depres- es )Alsharhan and Nairn,
sions and low hills such as 1997(. The major structural
a gently sloping Ahmadi features in Kuwait is a se-
Ridge in the southern part ries of north-south, north-
of the state. Highest elevat- north west trending anti-
ed topographic feature is clines )Fig. 2-B(. These
Jal Az-Zor Escarpment in double plunging anticlines
the northwestern shore of are intersected with some
Kuwait Bay )Fig.3-A( where faults and are basically re-
its elevation reaches around lated to epeirogenic move-
230 m. There is one major ment )Carmen, 1996(.
depression along the west- There are many other fault
ern boundaries of Kuwait systems in Kuwait which
known as Wadi Al-Baten. formed as a result of both
The width of this valley epirogenic movement of the
ranges between 7-10 km basement and compres-
with an average depth of 57 sional forces caused by Za-
m )Al-Sarawi, 1980(, its ori- gros orogeny.
gin is related to a fault sys-
tem. The wadi is covered by The result of exploration
Quaternary and Tertiary studies show that the sub-
gravels of igneous and met- surface stratigraphic forma-
amorphic origin sourced tions are gently northeast
from the Arabian Shield. dipping. An example of a
structure contour map for
First geologic study of Ku- the Tertiary Dammam For-
wait started in 1912 as a re- mation in figure )2-C( show
sult of oil exploration. In
