Industrial Assessment of Limestone beds of the Qamchuqa Formation for Cement Industry, Kurdistan Region, North Iraq

Abstract

The Qamchuqa Formation is widely exposed in Kurdistan Region (IKR); north of Iraq. The formation along with the Bekhme Formation form the bulk of the main mountains (anticlines) in the IKR. Among those anticlines is the Ranya anticline, which has a NW – SE trend, where the Qamchuqa Formations has a thickness of about 700 m. The main lithological facies of the formation are limestone, dolomitic limestone and dolomite. We have sampled the uppermost 89 meters of the northeastern limb, by collecting 10 samples of different sampling intervals that range from (3 – 12) m. The ten rock samples were tested by an XRF to measure the concentration of the oxides at each sample. The XRF results showed that the 10 rock samples are limestone with different percentages of oxides. The weighted averages of the oxides in the collected samples have been calculated, and the results showed that the limestone beds along the studied section in the upper part of the Qamchuqa Formations are suitable for the cement industry. The average concentration of CaO and MgO is 55.13 % and 0.26 %, respectively.