TY - JOUR
T1 - Petrography and heavy minerals analysis for recognition of the depositional history of the Wahiba Sand Sea, Sultanate of Oman
AU - Gheith, Amin
AU - Al-Balushi, Ali
AU - Hereher, Mohamed
AU - Sherief, Youssef
AU - Al-Awadhi, Talal
N1 - Funding Information:
This study has been carried out at laboratories of Geology Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University. The research was performed as a part of a project (ID: IG/ART/GEOG/19/03). We acknowledge the Sultan Qaboos University, Oman for financial support in the fieldwork.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Saudi Society for Geosciences.
PY - 2021/8
Y1 - 2021/8
N2 - The study deals with the microscopic investigation of the Wahiba sand dunes to deduce the depositional history and the provenance. Petrographic investigation reveals that Wahiba sands consist mainly of fine to very fine-grained and moderately well-sorted siliciclastic-carbonate components. Sand components consist of quartz, feldspar (microcline and plagioclase), fossils (benthic foraminifera and shell fragments), and several kinds of rock fragments; sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. The heavy minerals recognized in Wahiba sand dunes include opaque iron minerals, augite, hornblende, epidote, zircon, tourmaline, rutile, garnet, kyanite, olivine, biotite, and chlorite, in addition to weathered carbonate minerals. These kinds of heavy minerals indicate that Wahiba dunes are derived mainly from igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary sources. Ancient wadis brought ambiguous amounts of detrital materials from the steep mountains to be deposited in the marine shelf environment, then mixed with recent marine deposits and reworked by currents and waves. When sea level dropped in the Late Quaternary, these continental shelf deposits were subjected to subaerial processes where winds expedited the transport of the mixed siliciclastic-carbonate sediments to form aeolianites near the coast. These aeolianites have been recycled again by the complex wind processes and mixed with recent detrital materials. The latter originated from the steep mountains in the northeast and west to form the northern Wahiba dunes.
AB - The study deals with the microscopic investigation of the Wahiba sand dunes to deduce the depositional history and the provenance. Petrographic investigation reveals that Wahiba sands consist mainly of fine to very fine-grained and moderately well-sorted siliciclastic-carbonate components. Sand components consist of quartz, feldspar (microcline and plagioclase), fossils (benthic foraminifera and shell fragments), and several kinds of rock fragments; sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. The heavy minerals recognized in Wahiba sand dunes include opaque iron minerals, augite, hornblende, epidote, zircon, tourmaline, rutile, garnet, kyanite, olivine, biotite, and chlorite, in addition to weathered carbonate minerals. These kinds of heavy minerals indicate that Wahiba dunes are derived mainly from igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary sources. Ancient wadis brought ambiguous amounts of detrital materials from the steep mountains to be deposited in the marine shelf environment, then mixed with recent marine deposits and reworked by currents and waves. When sea level dropped in the Late Quaternary, these continental shelf deposits were subjected to subaerial processes where winds expedited the transport of the mixed siliciclastic-carbonate sediments to form aeolianites near the coast. These aeolianites have been recycled again by the complex wind processes and mixed with recent detrital materials. The latter originated from the steep mountains in the northeast and west to form the northern Wahiba dunes.
KW - Heavy minerals
KW - Petrographic description
KW - Provenance
KW - Sea-level change
KW - Sultanate of Oman
KW - Wahiba Sand Sea
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U2 - 10.1007/s12517-021-07790-0
DO - 10.1007/s12517-021-07790-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85110988575
SN - 1866-7511
VL - 14
JO - Arabian Journal of Geosciences
JF - Arabian Journal of Geosciences
IS - 15
M1 - 1444
ER -