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Arabian Shield

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Groundwater in the Arab Middle East

Abstract

The Arabian Shield, the uplifted basement of the Arabian Plate, occupies about 770,000 km2 in the west and southwest of the plate. The 9–15 km thick basement sequence is composed of gneiss, metasediments and volcanics and has been intruded extensively by granitic plutons. The oldest rocks exposed on the shield are represented by the “basement gneiss”, which occurs mainly in diapiric or intrusive structures. Sedimentary and volcanic rocks, metamorphosed to greenschist facies, comprise schists, marble, quartzite, conglomerate, greywacke, metadiorite, metagabbro, amphibolite. The Precambrian sequence is penetrated by mainly granitoid and granitic plutonic bodies and dikes and by stocks, pipes and batholits, ranging from gabbro to granitic lithology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hohenzollernstr. 21, 30161, Hannover, Germany

    Wolfgang Wagner

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  1. Wolfgang Wagner
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Correspondence to Wolfgang Wagner .

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Wagner, W. (2011). Arabian Shield. In: Groundwater in the Arab Middle East. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-19351-4_7

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