Ooidal Carbonate Facies, as the Latest Holocene Deposits of the Urmia Lake, NW Iran

The Urmia Lake, located in northwest Iran, has suffered from serious ecological and environmental disasters, mainly routed in the great decrease in the water inflow to the lake during the recent decades. The French-Persian project (started in 2016) is one the active projects aiming to rescue the lake and its surrounding areas. This study, as a part of that comprehensive project, focused on the surficial carbonate and mixed siliciclastic-carbonate sediments of the lake in order to indicate evidences of the lake level fluctuations.

Detailed facies analysis of the latest Holocene surficial deposits of the Golman-Khaneh area (based on field observations and laboratory studies) has led to recognition of sandy ooid grainstone and peloid (fecal pellet) grainstone facies. Occurrence of carbonate/mixed siliciclastic-carbonate facies in the overwhelmingly silicilcastic environment indicates reduction in sediment influx from the land and considerable lake level rise during the latest Holocene. Thinness of the carbonate strata in the studied succession can be attributed to short period of the lake level highstand or the subsequent erosional phase.