52 PASCOE: GEOLOGICAL NOTES OX MESOPOTAMIA. 



Traces of arches or crests can be made out along the south- 

 western face of the hills in one or two spots, but there is much contor- 

 tion. 



Sections 2 and 3 on plate 8 will give some idea of the shape of the 

 fold in the neighbourhood of the oil wells at Palkanah opposite 

 Sulaiman Beg. These wells are situated along the line of a small 

 subsidiary anticline occurring in the north-eastern flank of the main 

 fold. This small fold, like the main anticline is isoclinal and itself 

 slightly contorted ; near the wells it has been bent bodily back- 

 wards by its contact with the similarly bent main fold in the way 

 depicted. Extending parallel to the line of wells and a few yards 

 north-east of them is a double ridge of limestone with a local strike 

 of 55° W. of N.— 55° E of S. and a dip E.N.E. of 50-G0 , which prob- 

 ably represents the core of this fold. This limestone is flanked on 

 both sides by white gypsum succeeded by a red and green clays belong- 

 ing to the uppermost horizons of the Fars. To the south-west these 

 red and green clays form a small syncline, along which flows a 

 straight N.W. — S.E. reach of the stream, and which separates the 

 subsidiary from the main anticline, which is contorted in a way 

 similiar to that sketched. This interesting minor anticline can be 

 traced for two miles or so to the north-west, the limestone and 

 gypsum pitching underneath the red and green clays, and showing 

 the remains of an acute arch. When traced south-eastwards the 

 minor anticline is no longer recognisable after 1| miles ; in pitching 

 it loses the bent backwards and assumes a normal overfolded condi- 

 tion as shown in the 3rd section plate 8. The small syncline, when 

 traced in the same direction, widens, and includes thin sandstones 

 which are referable to the lowest horizons of the Kurd series ; it also 

 becomes normally underfolded in correspondence with the anticline. 



Leaving the oil-well locality and proceeding south-eastwards 

 we find the same baffling persistent gentle north-easterly dip in the 

 outward face of the hills, with here and there contortion, but no 

 definite relics of a crest. Between the sulphur spring of Gharrah 

 and the Kurah Chai the Fars outcrop becomes very narrow and the 

 beds along the alluvial boundary are almost horizontal. 



In the Kurd series forming the north-eastern limb considerable 

 variation in dip may take place along the strike, causing a widen- 

 ing or narrowing of the outcrop of its zones ; north-east of Palkanah 

 a small subsidiary anticline can be seen. As in other areas, we find 

 the same curiously rapid erection of the beds on approaching the 



