Abstract
The As Sabriyah area is located in a zone with a hyperarid desert climate and features a well-developed paleodrainage system cut into the Upper Member of the Pliocene Dibdibba Formation. This study aimed to investigate the sedimentological and morphological characteristics of the drainage system top surface (lag) and surface to near-surface (sublag) sediments and their transport, deposition, and dispersal processes. A total of 207 lag and sublag samples were collected from 18 transects extending laterally in the SW–NE direction and distributed in the SE–NW direction. Muddy sublag samples underwent mechanical analysis using the U.S. Standard Set of Sieves and wet sieving. The lag and sublag samples were both subjected to mineralogical analyses (XRD, XRF, and ICP–OES), the lag sample grains were counted, and thin sections were prepared. The bimodality of the grain size distribution in the sublag samples indicated a deviation from normal and a change in the sand size fraction from medium to coarse. The grains were poorly to very poorly sorted, strongly skewed to the coarse size fraction (< − 0.30 ɸ), and exhibited variable kurtosis with mesokurtic dominancy (0.90:1.11 ɸ). The quartz component was dominant (67%) and silicon oxide (SiO2) (77%), and the iron (Fe) concentration was very high (7499 mg/kg). The lag deposits are coarse-grained, strongly similar to Quaternary sediments, and are suggested to have originated from the underlying Upper Member of the Dibdibba Formation. The deposits are composed of fluviatile material transported by energetic downslope-flowing streams with variable velocities in an alluvial fan or deltaic environment and experienced quick deposition. The deposits were then reworked by winnowing in flowing streams.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Research Administration of Kuwait University for financing project SE02/14. Thanks are also extended to the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department, Faculty of Science, Kuwait University, for providing laboratory facilities and to the Research Sector Projects Unit (project no. GS 01/01) and NUERS (project no: SRUL01/13). In addition, thanks are extended to Mrs. Nehaya Saied, Mr. Manvar Khan, Mr. Nabil Basilli, and Mr. Yousif Abdullah from the Earth and Environmental Sciences Department for their devoted assistance with field and laboratory work, as well as to Mrs. Nehaya Saied for conducting the statistical analysis.
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All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Adeeba Al-Hurban and Fawzia Al-Ruwaih. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Adeeba Al-Hurban, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Al-Hurban, A., Al-Ruwaih, F. The study of sedimentological and morphological characteristics of the As Sabriyah drainage network in northern Kuwait: a case study. Arab J Geosci 16, 232 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-023-11175-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-023-11175-w