Neotectonic Activity Using Geomorphological Features in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Neotectonic Activity Using Geomorphological Features in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region Varoujan K. Sissakian . Nadhir Al-Ansari
. Lanja H. Abdullah
Received: 1 January 2020 / Accepted: 29 April 2020 The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Iraqi Kurdistan Region is located in the northeastern part of the Arabian Plate which is colliding with the Eurasian (Iranian) Plate and is located within the Zagros Foreland Basin. This collision, which is still active with convergent type of tectonic boundary, has caused deformation of the rocks in the Zagros Foreland Basin with different intensities. The deformation intensity decreases southwest wards since the exerted stresses from the collision is in a NE–SW direction. Depending on the deformation intensity and many other factors, the tectonic framework of the region which is part of the main tectonic frame of Iraq is divided into three main tectonic units among them only two units are within Kurdistan Region. The two zones are from NE–SW direction: (1) Shalair Terrane, and (2) Outer Platform. In the current study, evidences about Neotectonic activities are presented from different parts of V. K. Sissakian University of Kurdistan, Erbil, KRG, Iraq e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] V. K. Sissakian Private Consultant Geologist, Erbil, Iraq N. Al-Ansari (&) Lulea University of Technology, 971 87 Lulea˚, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] L. H. Abdullah University of Sulaimani, Sulaimani, KRG, Iraq e-mail: [email protected]
Kurdistan Region depending on different geomorphological and structural features. Among those features are: abnormal trends of valleys, dislocated and dissected alluvial fans, regional lineaments, water and wind gaps, faulted rocks of Pliocene–Pleistocene age, active faults. The Neotectonic evidences were recognized using satellite images and the existing Neotectonic data, and validated in the field. Keywords Neotectonic Water gap Wind gap Pleistocene faults Dissected alluvial fan Active fault
1 Introduction The Iraqi Kurdistan Region forms the extreme northeastern part of the Arabian Plate which is in collision with the Eurasian Plate with convergent type of plate tectonic boundary (Fouad 2015). The Zagros Thrust– Fold Belt through which the Zagros Foreland is located is formed due to the collision between the two plates, and the collision is still active. Many researchers have studied the tectonic activity of the collision, among them are: Berberian and King (1981), Beydoun (1991), Beydoun and Hughes Clarke (1992), Alsharhan and Nairn (1997), Blanc et al. (2003), Burberry et al. (2010), Burberry (2015) and Garzica et al. (2019), they all reported about the Zagros Foreland Basin which is a continuously subsiding
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basin including the Zagros Thrust–Fold Belt which itself includes different tectonic zones with different terminologies. However, the whole Iraqi Kurdistan Region lies in the Outer Platform (Unstable Shelf) which is tectonically un
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