--> Abstract: Structure of the Zafarana Accommodation Zone, Northern Gulf of Suez, Egypt, by S. Schamel and D. Schelling; #90956 (1995).

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Abstract: Structure of the Zafarana Accommodation Zone, Northern Gulf of Suez, Egypt

Steven Schamel, Daniel Schelling

In many rift systems accommodation zones, structural highs separating half-graben floored basins of opposite asymmetry, are favored sites for hydrocarbon accumulation. This underlines the importance of understanding the configuration of the Zafarana accommodation zone, which separates the SW dipping Darag basin from the NE dipping Central basin tilt block provinces in the northern Gulf of Suez. Structural mapping onshore and construction of balanced serial cross sections across the northern Gulf of Suez constrained by wells and seismic lines have allowed us to define the geometry of the feature and its genetic relationship to older structures. Both the location and the distinctive style of the Zafarana accommodation zone are controlled by the preexisting Wadi Araba anticl noruim, a large "Syrian arc" inversion structure at nearly a right-angle to the trend of the Gulf of Suez rift.

The Darag basin tilt block province has a pronounced asymmetry in the north where the SW dipping North Galala Block on the west forms the hanging wall to the breakaway zone and a rollover zone which hosts the Sudr and associated fields on the Sinai coast. The northern Darag basin is underlain by essentially one broad, SW dipping tilt block, which flattens to the south, eventually rotating to a NE dip as it crosses the Zafarana accommodation zone. To the south, the tilt blocks within and adjacent to the Central basin dip to the NE and the rollover zone underlies the western shore of the Gulf. The principal expression of the Zafarana accommodation zone along the eastern border fault is the pronounced increase of throw on the fault southward as the rollover zone is replaced by the breaka ay. The western border fault, however, steps abruptly westward at the passage from breakaway to rollover zone resulting in a near doubling of the width of the Gulf of Suez rift south of the zone. The faults which allow the structural transition across the accommodation zone in part reuse older inverted normal faults on the south side of the Wadi Araba anticlinorium.

The crustal extension estimated from our balanced cross sections across the northern Gulf of Suez is approximately 10%. With such a small amount of extension, structural closure associated with the Zafarana accommodation zone would be expected to be limited in areal extent and amplitude.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90956©1995 AAPG International Convention and Exposition Meeting, Nice, France