Events Surrounding the Rutba Uplift in Western Iraq

By

 Saad Zair Jassim¹

(1) GETECH, Leeds University, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

 The Rutba Uplift refers to a broad region covering W Iraq, NE Jordan and NE Syria and represents an Early Triassic inversion of a very pronounced Paleozoic basin in which the full Paleozoic sequence might be present. The shape of the uplift fluctuated between elonagted N-S and NE-SW high throughout the Triassic and Jurassic and ENE-WSW oriented high throughout the Cretaceous. Against the popular belief, the Rutba uplift is neither related to Mardin nor to Hail uplifts in Turkey and Saudi arabia respectively.

A combination of repeated tectonic uplift and eustatic changes in sea level charcterized the uplift from Late Triassic to Cenomanian. Tweleve transgressive-regressive cycles within the above time frame can be distinguished and correlated with basinwise sedimentary cycles.During Campanian-Maastrichtian to M Eocene, the uplift was influenced by N-S and E-W tectonism which was associated with upwelling and phosphorite deposition due to disturbance in the basin resulting from Late Cretaceous obduction along the Zagros suture. The uplift was finally abandoned by the sea from the Late Eocene and remained tilted towards the NE till the present.

Due to low Mesozoic and Tertiary sedimentary cover, only Paleozoic petroleum systems can be expected as proven by drilling in W Iraq, SE Syria and NE Jordan.