Using sequence stratigraphy to resolve depositional misconceptions on the arabian plate - The example of the gotnia basin creation and infill

The Jurassic stratigraphy of the Middle East includes the world's most economically significant petroleum systems, containing multiple world-class source, reservoir and seal packages. Yet in a regional context, these depositional systems are still not fully understood, leading to inconsistencies in lithostratigraphic nomenclature across international boundaries and misconceptions in the stratigraphic architecture limiting exploration and production success. We have applied sequence stratigraphic principles across the Jurassic strata of the eastern Arabian Plate to increase stratigraphic understanding and resolve some of the common misconceptions. This provides a robust age-based framework to reduce lithostratigraphic uncertainty across international boundaries and provides predictive capabilities into the temporal and spatial distribution of source, reservoir, and seal facies. Herein, we focus on one of these stratigraphic misconceptions, which deals with the development and sedimentary infill of the Late Jurassic Gotnia Basin, and its relationship with the aggrading platform of the Rimthan Arch. Our literature based re-interpretation proposes a mostly eustatically driven control, whereby the shallow water platform of the Rimthan Arch followed sea level rise, and the Gotnia Basin became a starved intra shelf basin. This revised stratigraphic interpretation has important consequences for the lateral facies relationships, and overall tectono-sedimentary understanding of the area, as well as for the petroleum habitat.