The geology of the Dibba zone, northern Oman mountains; a preliminary study

Abstract

The Dibba zone is a narrow, structurally complex, NE-SW trending part of the Oman mountains thrust front. It comprises a series of imbricated and folded thrust sheets of shelf-edge and slope facies Mesozoic carbonates, basinal facies sediments and a sedimentary mélange, overlain by a thrust sheet of sub-ophiolitic greenschist and amphibolite facies metamorphic rocks and the basal part of the Upper Cretaceous Semail ophiolite nappe. Thrusting during the Late Cretaceous was directed towards the W and NW across the former continental margin. It is postulated that during the Mesozoic the area lay on a SE-facing, probably transform fault controlled, section of the NE Arabian continental margin. There is no evidence for major post-early Mesozoic high-angle faulting along the Dibba zone, as has previously been postulated in tectonic syntheses of the area.