First Blog Assignment: Mountains

The Mountains 

The Hajjar Mountians, Tuwaiq Mountains, and The Arabian Shield are sourounding the Empty quarter, and they are critical reasons of the creation of Empty Quarter.

The Hajjar Mountains

The Hajjar Mountains are located in the East side of the Empty Quarter basin. These mountains are located in Oman and UAE. Understanding the causes that formed mountains that are surrounding the Empty Quarter provide us clearer explanation, because these mountains is the one of the reasons that formed the Empty Quarter.

UAE side of The Hajjar mountains 

The Mountains Formation:

Subduction is the main cause of creating the distinctive geology of the Hajar Mountains. From what we have read, because of the subduction that occurred in the deep of the Tethys Ocean, which have created an obduction on the shore that caused the creation of the Hajar Mountains. What happened was the volcanic activity had pushed the curst causing a subduction in the bottom of the ocean. Because of the subduction in the ocean, a collision took place between a continental crust and an oceanic crust, and this activity called obduction. On the shore, folding and faulting happened, which created the mountains. The formation of the mountains is estimated to be started approximately 90 million years ago and was completed by about 75million years ago. 

Tuwaiq Mountains

Jebel Tuwaiq (Tuwaiq Mountain ) which is around 600 meters high; is one of the interesting geographic landmarks in the Arabian Peninsula. Jebel Tuwaiq is a Plateau of limestone that extends from south of the capital "Riyad" to the north of the empty quarter. 

Road from Riyad to Mekkah, which goes throw Jebel Tuwaiq 

Flash flood at part of Twauiq Mountains

The mountain was named tuwaiq because it extends by 800km and looks like a “tuwq”, which means a collar, so its shaped like “(“.  The mountain is located on upper Jurassic part of KSA, and it has high reserves of oil. Bureau and Saudi Aramco used LIDAR survey to build a 3-D model of the mountain.

Formation of Twauiq Mountain:

 The Arabian Shield

Location Of The Arabian Shield As Shown On the Map

                                             

Najid Plateau

                                                              

The studies showed that in 1770 Ma the subduction process between three micro-plates Zalm, the Kabid, and southern Afif terrain have created what’s called the Arabian Shield. Arabian shield is formation of several mountains and Najid Plateau. The Kabid micro-plate formation is the oldest one of these terrains which goes back to Proterozoic. By 720 Ma Afif Southern Micro-plate collided with Asir terrain as part of the Nabitah orogeny. According to the studies, faulting was the process that caused formation of Najid plateau. Najid Strike-Slip fault has changed the its motion direction. 

1-The Hajar mountians Citations:

http://www.uaeinteract.com/uaeint_misc/teanh/005over.pdf

http://pollock-virag.com/UAE/2008_Sandy_Beach/Sandy_Beach_2008.htm

2-Twaiq Mountains Citations:

http://www.beg.utexas.edu/resprog/worldwide/ilris_saudiarabia.htm
Book: Sedimentary Basins and Petroleum Geology of the Middle East, By A.E.M. Nairn, A.S. Alsharhan


3- The Arabian Shield formation Article citation:

http://looklex.com/e.o/najd.htm

http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/content/142/6/1189.short