Multiphase Structural Evolution of a Continental Margin During Obduction Orogeny: Insights From the Jebel Akhdar Dome, Oman Mountains

Abstract

AbstractThe structural evolution of the carbonate platform in the footwall of the Semail ophiolite emplaced onto the passive continental margin of Arabia helps to better understand the early stages of obduction‐related orogens. These early stages are rarely observable in other orogens as they are mostly overprinted by later mountain building phases. We present an extensive structural analysis of the Jebel Akhdar anticline, the largest tectonic window of the Oman Mountains, and integrate it on different scales. Outcrop observations can be linked to plate motion data, providing an absolute timeframe for structural generations consistent with radiometric dating of veins. Top‐to‐S overthrusting of the Semail ophiolite and Hawasina nappes onto the carbonate platform during high plate convergence rates between Arabia and Eurasia caused rapid burial and overpressure, generation and migration of hydrocarbons, and bedding‐confined veins, but no major deformation in the carbonate platform. At reduced convergence rates, subsequent tectonic thinning of the ophiolite took place above a top‐to‐NNE, crustal‐scale ductile shear zone, deforming existing veins and forming a cleavage in clay‐rich layers in early Campanian times. Ongoing extension occurred along normal‐ to oblique‐slip faults, forming horst‐graben structures and a precursor of the Jebel Akhdar dome (Campanian to Maastrichtian). This was followed by NE‐SW oriented ductile shortening and the formation of the Jebel Akhdar dome, deforming the earlier structures. Thereafter, exhumation was associated with low‐angle normal faults on the northern flank of the anticline. We correlate the top‐to‐NNE crustal‐scale shear zone with a similar structure in the Saih Hatat window to develop a unified model of the tectonic evolution of the Oman Mountains.