File 1450/1919 ‘Mesopotamia & Kurdistan: Geological Reports on’ [‎92r] (198/522)

Possibilities of Obtaining Oil in the Jab-al-Mishrak
and Country West of Hammam Ali.
Maps.— ^ inch equal to 1 mile. T.C. 250.
INTRODUCTION.
The term Jab-al-Mishrak is applied to some hills overlooking the Tigris
on its right bank opposite the confluence of the Greater Zab. The range is
continued N.N.W’wards towards Mingar somewhat interruptedly by the
Tel Sulaiman and other hills with no established name. I propose to include
them all under the designation “ Jab-al-Mishrak.” It has neither the sim
plicity nor the same degree of regularity of the ranges hitherto described,
and this is paralleled by irregularity in the anticline which it constitutes.
The hills commence to rise above Hadra village on the Tigris and merge into
high ground N.N.W. of Jabaunam towards Mingar, which swings round to
the west past Kharrar. Exposures are fairly good except along the western
flank, where alluvium has obscured the structure, and, in the south, the
boundary line between the Lower Ears and the Red Clays and Sandstones
which succeeded it. N. of the Wadi A seasonal or intermittent watercourse, or the valley in which it flows. -al-Adbar the Mishrak fold merges into a
vast exposure of Low^er Ears beds which are never far from the horizontal
and roll hither and thither in a somewhat capricious way, though there is
always a tendency to preserve a N.W.—S.E. direction, which is shared to
some extent by the hills. N.W. of Hammam Ali, a town 14 miles S.S.E.
of Mosul, the ground is considerably broken, and the surface littered with
limestone fragments. I was much hindered in my examination of the
Mishrak area by atrocious weather.
ROCKS.
The rocks comprise the usual core of Lower Ears, which is cut oh east
wards by the river Tigris and low-lying alluvium. To the S.W. between
Shura and Hadra some badly exposed thin reddish sandstone has been
assigned to the Red Clay and Sandstone series; beyond this N.W’wards the
Lower Ears outcrop is continuous with Lower Ears beds which seem to form
another low anticline, S.W. of the Mishrak axis. N’wards nothing but
Lower Ears, sometimes partially hidden beneath alluvium, is seen as far as
Mosul.
Lower Fars .—The Lower Ears consists of the usual beds already
described in other reports, the prominent physical features S.E. of Rassif,
those of Tel Sulaiman and the hills around Jabaunam being produced by
limestone. One of these limestone bands covering a large area S.S.W., and
W. of Hammam Ali, caps a thick bed of soft clay, the result being chaos.
The clay has given way and the limestone fractured into numerous fragments
which lie about at all angles, entirely obscuring the dip; the clay band is
largely responsible for the bad road between Shura and Hammam Ali. The
only new feature worthy of notice in this series is the advent near the top
of some thin bands of sandstone, sometimes reddish, as near Tel Meywan
where it is overlain by fossiliferous limestone, or sometimes thin pebbly
coarse sandstone full of broken shells underlying a band of white gypsum,
as seen near Safatiyah; fragments of the latter type are seen lying about the
surface east of Shura. The sulphur and bitumen emanations will be referred
to later.
Red Clay and Sandstone Series .—The Red Clays and Sandstones form a
syncline between the Jab-al-Qaiyarah and Jab-al-Mishrak, pitching to the
S.E., and partly interrupted, as far as could be made out, by the end of a
low flat anticline pitching in the same direction along a line not far from
the town of Shura. The alluvium conceals most of the series, but the im
pression gained was that the greater part of the outcrop is limited to the
lower horizons, consisting mostly of red clay. A little more sandstone occurs
near Haudh, but although, gravel and a Conglomerate are seen on the surface
of the plateau here, there is no evidence that the Conglomeratic stage of this
series is actually present. Three miles W. of Safinah some poorly exposed
thin reddish-brown sandstone just pierces the alluvium. Similar sandstone
occurs in. the top of the Lower Ears, as already mentioned; but since
the beds in question are not apparently succeeded by any gypsum or lime
stone, they have been allotted to the Red Clay and Sandstone series, and the

File 1450/1919 ‘Mesopotamia & Kurdistan: Geological Reports on’ [‎92r] (198/522)

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File 1450/1919 ‘Mesopotamia & Kurdistan: Geological Reports on’ [‎92r] (198/522)

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