--> Intracontinental Rifting and Inversion Exemplified in the Palmyride (Syria) and Atlas (Morocco) Mountain Belts, by M. Barazangi, R. Litak, W. Beauchamp, D. Seber, T. Sawaf, W. Al-Youssef, and A. Demnati; #90986 (1994).

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Abstract: Intracontinental Rifting and Inversion Exemplified in the Palmyride (Syria) and Atlas (Morocco) Mountain Belts

Muawia Barazangi, Robert Litak, Weldon Beauchamp, Dogan Seber, Tarif Sawaf, Wasif Al-Youssef, Ahmed Demnati

The Palmyride Mountains of Syria and the Atlas Mountains of Morocco both represent intraplate Mesozoic troughs inverted during the Cenozoic in response to nearby plate boundary events. Both mountain belts appear to be built on the remnants of earlier orogenes: the Hercynian orogeny for the Atlas, and a postulated Proterozoic suture for the Palmyrides. Results from an ongoing joint research project between Cornell University and the Syrian Petroleum Company, supported by an oil industry consortium, indicate that the Palmyrides are a failed arm of the Levantine rifted margin beginning in the early Mesozoic, with deposition of up to 5 km of Mesozoic sediments in the Palmyride trough. Modest inversion began in the latest Cretaceous, coeval with ophiolite emplacement in northwest Syria and southern Turkey. In the Neogene and Quaternary, accelerated Palmyride uplift has accompanied large-scale plate boundary events, including collision and shearing along the northern and eastern margins of the Arabian plate, the opening of the Red Sea, and the main phase of motion along the Dead Sea fault system.

In Morocco, a similar joint research project has recently been initiated between Cornell and the Moroccan Office National de Recherche' et d'Exploitations Petrolieres (ONAREP). Initial work focuses on the High and Middle Atlas mountain belts and the intervening Missour basin. The scale of the Atlas is comparable to that of the Alps, dwarfing the Palmyrides. It represents a more complex and mature early Mesozoic aulacogen associated with the opening of the Neo-Tethys and Atlantic oceans. Remarkably, however, the Atlas rift also started to close in the Late Cretaceous, with subsequent Cenozoic uplift apparently related to emplacement of alpine Rif thrust sheets some 200 km north. Strike-slip motions, important in both the Palmyrides and Atlas, remain to be quantified. Both orogenes appe r to result from reaction of weak crustal zones to stresses transmitted hundreds of kilometers from nearby plate boundary collisions.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90986©1994 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June 12-15, 1994