Iraq Time Machine

Overview

The globe is rebuilt for 29 instants between 530 Ma and today with a published full-plate model: the coastlines of the time, the plate boundaries (subduction zones, spreading ridges, rifts, transforms) and the outline of Iraq carried by its plate. It turns to keep Iraq in view, so the student sees Iraq cross the southern hemisphere, the equator and the tropics.

The rock record follows the megasequences of the Arabian Plate: from the sandstones of the Gondwana margin and the Ordovician glaciation, through the carbonate platforms of the Neo-Tethys, the black Jurassic basins that generated Iraqi oil, the Cretaceous deltas and reefs that store it, the arrival of the ophiolites, the Oligocene reefs of Kirkuk and the gypsum of the Fatha Formation that seals them, to the rise of the Zagros and the plain of the two rivers.

What you enter · What you get

How it works in the field

Method and equations

Accuracy and error limits

• Plate positions before about 200 Ma depend on palaeomagnetism and on the model; palaeolatitude is typically uncertain by 5–10°, and longitude is not constrained by palaeomagnetism at all (it is fixed by the model). Coastlines are generalised and do not show every shallow sea.
• Formation ages are given to the stage, typically ±1–3 Myr in the Cenozoic and ±3–10 Myr in the Palaeozoic; some ages are debated (for example the Dibdibba Formation). Exposure points are representative and approximate (about 10 km).
• To reduce the error: compare with other plate models, use the type sections and detailed maps of the Iraqi Geological Survey for field work, and read the age of a formation from its fossils in the area of study.

Who uses it

Standards and references

1. Jassim, S.Z. & Goff, J.C. (eds.) (2006). Geology of Iraq. Dolin, Prague and Moravian Museum, Brno.
2. Sharland, P.R., Archer, R., Casey, D.M. et al. (2001). Arabian Plate Sequence Stratigraphy. GeoArabia Special Publication 2.
3. Merdith, A.S., Williams, S.E., Collins, A.S. et al. (2021). Extending full-plate tectonic models into deep time: linking the Neoproterozoic and the Phanerozoic. Earth-Science Reviews, 214, 103477.
4. Müller, R.D., Cannon, J., Qin, X. et al. (2018). GPlates: building a virtual Earth through deep time. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 19, 2243–2261. GPlates Web Service, gws.gplates.org.
5. Ogg, J.G. et al. Middle East Geologic Lexicon, geolex.org.
6. van Bellen, R.C., Dunnington, H.V., Wetzel, R. & Morton, D.M. (1959). Lexique Stratigraphique International, Asie, Fasc. 10a, Iraq. Paris.
7. Cohen, K.M., Finney, S.C., Gibbard, P.L. & Fan, J.-X. (2013, updated). The ICS International Chronostratigraphic Chart. Episodes, 36, 199–204.
8. Aqrawi, A.A.M., Goff, J.C., Horbury, A.D. & Sadooni, F.N. (2010). The Petroleum Geology of Iraq. Scientific Press, Beaconsfield.