Field Trip
Field Trip to the Modern Sabkha Environment of Abu
Dhabi
(United Arab Emirates)
The modern carbonate-evaporite depositional environments along the Abu Dhabi shoreline and offshore Abu Dhabi belong to the few areas of the world where the geoscientist can observe the interplay between carbonate and evaporite sedimentation.
Supratidal (sabkha) to intertidal and shallow subtidal (microbial mat and peloid-skeletal tidal-flat) environments will be studied along the Abu Dhabi coastline at Mussafah industrial channel and near Al-Qanatir Island.
Mussafah Channel: The trench is actually the wall of a man-made shipping canal cut into the sabkha near the Mussafah Industrial Area. The canal wall reveals a few meters of vertical sabkha succession. Excellent exposures of classic sabkha anhydrite occur as nodular to highly contorted bands.
Al-Qanatir Island: In the vicinity of the road to Al-Qanatir Island participants will be able to study a complete and undisturbed lateral facies succession from the upper supratidal to the lower intertidal and shallow subtidal:
- Upper supratidal stranded beach ridges.
- Topographic highs, some cm above the adjacent upper sabkha environment.
- Upper sabkha (upper supratidal).
- Surface covered by polygonally-cracked halite crust.
- Middle sabkha (middle supratidal).
- Surface covered by finely-crystalline, whitish anhydrite polygons.
- Lower sabkha (lower supratidal).
- Surface covered by shiny, sparkling gypsum crystals.
- Upper to lower intertidal microbial mat.
- Crenulated or crinkled microbial mat above gypsum mush facies.
- Blistered and pinnacle microbial mat.
- Polygonal and tufted microbial mat.
- Lowermost intertidal to shallow subtidal.
- Peloid-skeletal tidal-flat.
Many of these depositional environments and facies successions correspond to those observed in cores from the subsurface of the Arabian Peninsula.
