Impact of faulting in depocentres development, facies assemblages, drainage patterns, and provenance in continental half‐graben basins: An example from the Fanja Basin of Oman

Fault throw gradients create transverse folding, and this can influence accommodation creation and sedimentary routing and infill patterns in extensional half‐graben basin. The Fanja half‐graben basin (Oman) offers an excellent outcrop of an alluvial fan succession displaying cyclical stacking and basin‐scale growth‐fold patterns. These unique conditions allow for an investigation of fault‐timing and accommodation development related to fault‐transverse folding. Our study combines geological mapping, structural analysis, sedimentary logging and correlation, and bulk mineralogical compositions. Mapping reveals that the basin is bounded by a regional‐scale fault, with local depocentres changing position in response to transverse syncline and anticline development ascribed to fault‐displacement gradients. The alluvial Qahlah Formation (Late Cretaceous) is unconformably overlying the Semail Ophiolite, and it is in turn overlain by the marine Jafnayn Formation (Late Paleocene). Facies and stratigraphic analysis allows subdividing the Qahlah Formation into four informal units, from base to top: (i) laterite in topographic depressions of the ophiolite, (ii) greenish pebbly sandstones, deriving from axially draining braided streams deposited in the low‐relief half‐graben basin. This green Qahlah grades vertically into the red Qahlah, formed by alluvial fanglomerates and floodplain mudstones, with drainage patterns changing from fault‐transverse to fault‐parallel with increasing distance to the main fault. The red Qahlah can be divided into (iii) the Wadi al Theepa member, found in a western basin depocentre, with higher immaturity and sand:mud ratio, suggesting a more proximal source, and (iv) the Al Batah member, located in the eastern part of the basin. The latter shows better sorting, a lower sand:mud ratio, and more prominent graded sub‐units. It also shows eastward expansion from an orthogonal monocline, ascribed to accommodation developed in a relay ramp. Changes in sedimentary facies and depositional patterns are consistent with differential mineralogical composition. The Green Qahlah is composed of quartz and lithic mafic rock fragments, sourced from the ophiolite and schists of the metamorphic basement. The Red Qahlah is composed of chert and kaolinite sourced from the Hawasina Nappe succession in the footwall of the master fault. These changes in source area are linked to unroofing of fault‐footwalls and domal structures during the extensional collapse of the Semail Ophiolite. The novelty of this study resides in linking sedimentology and fault displacement events controlling fault‐perpendicular folding, and its influence on depocenter generation and stratigraphic architecture. This is an approach seldom considered in seismic analysis, and rarely analysed in outcrop studies, thus placing the results from this study among the key outcrop‐based contributions to the field.