Bar Al Hikman: a modern carbonate and outcrop analogue in Oman for Middle East Cretaceous fields

Abstract

The modern carbonate systems and sabkhas of Abu Dhabi and other sites along the Arabian shores of the Gulf are well established as shallow-marine to onland modern analogues for local carbonate or evaporite formations such as the Shuaiba or the Khuff, but they have also successfully been used for decades as analogues for carbonate-evaporite-bearing formations worldwide (Purser & Evans, 1973; Hughes, 1997, AlSharhan and Kendall, 2003). On the eastern coast of Oman, isolated on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, the Bar Al Hikman peninsula also provides a recent and modern carbonate-evaporite system that lies around the coast and on-land (Figure 1). This little known site, currently under study (Homewood et al., 2005), is becoming established as a most useful analogue for numerous rudist-bearing Cretaceous fields, both in Oman and elsewhere in the Middle East.