Jizan Gr

Cenozoic

Cretaceous

Jurassic

Triassic

Permian

Carboniferous

Devonian

Early Paleozoic

Jizan Gr

Period:

Paleogene

Age Interval:

Chattian, Sa3

Province:
Red Sea (Saudi Arabia)

Type Locality and Naming

The Jizan Group is named after the Jizan region (Figure 1f) and consists of undifferentiated volcanics, volcaniclastics, metasediments, sediments and basalt.. "The Jizan Group was informally named after exposures in the Jizan area by Brown and Jackson (1958), R.S. Johnson, D. Rodgers and G.R. Savage (1995, Saudi Aramco Report). Type Section: The Jizan Group is defined in the Saudi Aramco onshore exploration well Ghawwas South-1 (GWWS-1: 19°21′56.5″N, 41°11′06.6″E) between 2,976–6,035 ft. Reference Section: The Jizan Group is represented in the Saudi Aramco onshore exploration well Jizan North-1 (JZNR-1: 16°46′51.9″N, 36°43′52.2″E) between 9,607–10,450 ft." (Hughes and Johnson, 2005). Column: Red Sea Saudi Arabia

Synonym: Baid Fm. (

Lithology and Thickness

Volcanics. The Jizan Group consists of undifferentiated volcanics, volcaniclastics, metasediments, sediments and basalt. In the GWWS-1, the Jizan Group type section is 3,059 ft (932.6 m) thick, while it is greater than 843 ft in the reference well.

Lithology Pattern:

Volcanics

Relationships and Distribution

Lower contact

"the Jizan Gr is generally unconformably overlies Proterozoic Basement in the type section ". Regionally, the schematic strat column indicates the next older unit as Matiyah Fm

Upper contact

Regionally, the schematic strat column indicates the next younger unit as Al Wajh Fm. However, "the Jizan Group is generally nonconformably overlain by the Burqan Fm. ... In the Saudi Aramco Jizan South-1 (JZSO-1) well, however, the Jizan Group is nonconformably overlain by a thin shale unit that is interpreted as belonging to the Al Wajh Fm of the Tayran Gr. This is the only example in which both the Jizan Gr and Tayran Gr are in contact." (Hughes and Johnson, 2005). [Interbedded lava flows, sandstones, graywackes, limestones and volcanic tuffs have been assigned informally to the Baid Fm by Greenwood (1975), and are considered by Hughes and Johnson (2005) to probably represent a transitional facies between the Jizan Gr and the Al Wajh Fm of the Tayran Gr.]

Regional extent

Available evidence indicates that the Jizan Group is restricted to the Jizan area. It is possible that the Jizan Gr is equivalent, at least in part, to the Abu Zenima Fm of the Gulf of Suez (Montanet et al., 1998), and also to part of the Baid Fm (Schmidt and Hadley, 1984).

GeoJSON

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Fossils

Age

Assigned as early Chattian on the generalized Middle East strat column (2008). "Basalt flows in the Baid Fm (Sebai et al., 1991) in the Qunfudah area have been dated as early Miocene, 18.4 to 21.7 Ma, but as the Miocene/Oligocene contact is about 23.8 Ma (Berggren et al., 1995), this section is considered to represent the youngest part of the Jizan Gr. … The presence of freshwater fish fossils attributed to Barbus and Tilapia (Brown, 1970) has been used to suggest a Miocene age for the Baid Fm (Schmidt and Hadley, 1984). … Basalts of the Abu Zenima Fm of Egypt have been dated at 22 Ma (Ott d’Estevou et al., 1986), and this tends to support the lithostratigraphic comparison with the Saudi Arabian Red Sea succession. The oldest syn-rift sediments found in the Red Sea inter-layered with basalts range from 27.0 to 22.0 Ma and are found at Sharm El Qibli (El-Haddad, 1984; in Al-Husseini et al., 2003) and Sharm El Bahari (Roussel et al., 1986; in Al-Husseini et al., 2003). This conforms to the age of magmatism on the western edge of the Arabian Plate which Ghazot et al. (1998; in Al-Husseini et al., 2003) maintain ranges from 26.0–20.0 Ma." (Hughes and Johnson, 2005)

Age Span:

Beginning stage:

Chattian

Fraction up in beginning stage:

0.0

Beginning date (Ma):

27.29

Ending stage:

Chattian

Fraction up in the ending stage:

0.55

Ending date (Ma):

24.95

Depositional setting

The Jizan Group is interpreted as representing initial syn-rift volcanism in the southern Red Sea interbedded with the earliest syn-rift sediments

Depositional pattern:

Additional Information

Compiler:

Hughes, G.W., Johnson, R.S., 2005. Lithostratigraphy of the Red Sea Region. GeoArabia, 10: 49-126. And Middle East Geological Timescale 2008 Al-Husseini, Journal of Middle East Petroleum Geosciences v 13. no. 4