Sudden drowning of the Late Cretaceous carbonate platform in central Zagros basin: a case study from the shaley Laffan Member in one of the Oil Fields of Abadan Plain, SW Iran

Rapid sea-level rise and drowning of carbonate platforms is one of the important geological events in the Late Cretaceous and after the Turonian global unconformity. This transgression in central and western Zagros Basin is represented as shaley sediments of the Laffan Member, which were deposited over the Sarvak Formation. The stratigraphic position and the occurrence of the Charophytes-Ostracods biozone indicate the late Cretaceous, Coniacian age for the Laffan Member, which is stratigraphically equivalent to the Surgah Formation in Lurestan area in the west of Iran. The Laffan Member is mainly shaley in lithology with intercalations of thin-bedded argillaceous limestones and is the caprock over the reservoir of the Sarvak Formation in some oil fields in SW Zagros. Microfacies, sedimentary environments, biostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy of the Laffan Member in two wells of Azadegan Oil Field located in Abadan Plain were investigated. Petrographic data revealed the presence of a shaley facies and two carbonate microfacies including charophitic mudstone-wackestone to bioclastic planktonic foraminiferal wackestone. These microfacies were deposited in transitional-brackish to deep marine environments. Marine transgression over the eroded palaeotopography of the Cenomanian-Toronian carbonates resulted in estuaries as channels and transitional environments. In these estuaries, mixture of the fresh and marine waters resulted in deposition of the lower parts of the Laffan Member and graded upward into the marine deposits of the upper parts of this Member.The sudden change of shallow-transitional facies to deep marine sediments in the Laffan Member indicates drowning of the carbonate platform of central Zagros Basin in Coniacian. The evidence like erosional base, deepening-upward sequences, frequency of mudstone facies (shale) and continuity with marine carbonates confirm this conclusion. Investigation of vertical changes of the microfacies with gama-ray well log data indicate the Laffan Member is part of a sequence as lowstand deposits (LST), transgressive deposits (TST) which grade upwards into maximum flooding surface (MFS) and high-stand deposits (HST) which comprise a third-order sequence. This sequence begins with an erosional unconformity and follows up with the formation of the estuary and deep sea sediments. The latter package is covered with the carbonate sediments of the lower part of the Ilam Formation (Santonian) which represents carbonate platform deposits of high-stand system track (HST).