From rifted margins to foreland basins: investigating provenance and sediment dispersal across desert Arabia (Oman, U.A.E

ABSTRACT: Arid Arabia, where chemical weathering and anthropic modifications are negligible, is a huge natural laboratory for the study of sediment provenance. Mafic and ultramafic detritus from ophiolite belts is found along the Oman Mountains and on Masirah Island (‘‘ob-duction-orogen provenance’’). Dominant cellular serpentinite grains from residual mantle harzburgites of the Sama’il ophiolite contrast with gabbroic, diabase, and basaltic grains from igneous crustal rocks of the Masirah ophiolite. Detritus from autochthonous basement and cover rocks is found along the Arabian Sea margin (‘‘rift-shoulder provenance’’). Transition from carbonate-dominated lithic sands (‘‘un-dissected stage’’) to hornblende-rich plagioclase arkoses (‘‘dissected stage’’) is best documented at the northern edge of the Gulf of Aden. Along the older, strike-slip Owen-basin margin, only locally are feld-spars, hornblende, and garnet derived from small outcrops of Pan-African basement. Modern eolian sands from Yemen to the Arabia