ABSTRACT
The work of the geologists of the Anglo-Persian and its successor companies over the next seven decades resulted in the accumulation of a great deal of data on the various aspects of the geology of, and the habitat of hydrocarbons in, the Zagros basin. The folded belt is a province of numerous, elongated anticlines and synclines of great length and amplitude. An overall northwest-southeast tectonic trend characterises the folded belt, and the intensity of deformation and structural elevation increases towards the northeast. Decollement and wrinkling of the Phanerozoic sedimentary fill of the Zagros basin over a basal evaporitic layer, the Infracambrian Hormuz Salt Formation, produced the folded belt structures. Complications arising from gravitational gliding are observed on anticlinal flanks in many areas. The Zagros thrust marks the northeastern limit of the Zagros basin. It is a great suture zone along which the central Iranian and Afro-Arabian continents have become welded together.
