Sulaiy Fm

Period:

Cretaceous, Jurassic

Age Interval:

Late Jurassic

Province:
Qatar

Type Locality and Naming

Is in the cliff above Dahl Hit in Saudi Arabia. M. Steineke, R.A. Bramkamp and N.J. Sander, 1958

Synonym: “Sulaiy Formation”, Powers et al., 1966. « Sulaiy Formation », Powers, 1968.

Reference Section:

Q.P.C. Well Dukhan No. 27, lat. 25°17’54” N, long. 50°46’30” E. elevation 16 m (52 ft), completed 23.2.1952; between drilled depths 1615 and 1753 m (5298 and 5700 ft).

Lithology and Thickness

Limestone, light grey to grey, fine grained varying from slightly porous at the top to dense at the bottom. The upper and middle parts are slightly dolomitic. In many sections, but not in the reference section, a thin bed of pellety or oolitic limestone occurs at the bottom. Its thickness is 138 m (453 ft).

Lithology Pattern:

Dolomitic limestone

Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

Hith Anhydrite Fm; contact conformable; placed at the top of limestone containing anhydrite nodules, assigned to the Hith Amhydrite Fm

Upper contact

Yamama Fm; contact conformable, placed where porous, chalky, pellety limestones of the basal Yamama overlie fine mudstones of the underlying Sulaiy. Recent revision of the upper limit of the Sulaiy Fm in the subsurface of Saudi Arabia (R.W. Powers, 1966) possibly invalidates the current pick for the formations top in Qatar. The present-day boundary between predominantly dense lime mudstones, below, and porous detrital limestone, above, still appears the most natural formation contact in Qatar.

Regional extent

Recognized in all deep wells drilled in Qatar. To the south-east, in Abu Dhabi, a dense lime mudstone sequence at the base of the Thamama can be compared with the Sulaiy Formation but an exact distinction between Sulaiy and Yamama Formations cannot be made.

GeoJSON

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Fossils

None identified. The Sulaiy Formation is generally unfossiliferous in Qatar, but its consistent lithology permits correlation over a wide area.

Age

Not definitely established in Qatar. Conventionally treated as earliest Cretaceous but, as in Saudi Arabia, its lowest part could be late Jurassic.The age of the Sulaiy in both Qatar and Saudi Arabia is deduced from long range correlation of the top of the Hith Formation with the top of the Gotnia Formation of Iraq. The latter is overlain by limestone containing Tithonian to Berriasian ammonites. This deduction assumes that the end of anhydrite formations over a wide area is approximately synchronous. In spite of the above, the base of the Sulaiy Fm is conventionally taken to mark the Jurassic – Cretaceous boundary in Qatar.

Age Span:

Beginning stage:

Berriasian

Fraction up in beginning stage:

0.0

Beginning date (Ma):

143.10

Ending stage:

Berriasian

Fraction up in the ending stage:

1.0

Ending date (Ma):

137.70

Depositional setting

Depositional pattern:

Additional Information

The name Wakrah Fm, assigned to this rock unit before the name Sulaiy was adopted, is now obsolete.

Compiler:

Jacques LeBlanc (2021), transcribed and translated from Stratigraphic Lexicon Qatar Peninsula by W.Sugden and A.J. Standring, 1972