Relationship between Structure and Stress Field - A Key for Successful HC Exploration in the Northern Zagros Thrust Belt

This study has focused on the fold trains part of Iraq which lies north of Latitude 35 North, and they involve Cretaceous to Cenozoic sediments. These sediments consists mainly of limestone, dolomites, sandstone, claystone and conglomerates. It appears quite clear that the different mechanical competence of the lithologies involved during the folding control the style and the geometries of the investigated structures; the alternation of competent (laminated and massive dolomite and limestone) and incompetent (claystone, siltstone and shale) is easy detectable in structures as the Bina Bawi, Shaikan, Safeen anticline, with the heavy eroded incompetent lithologies (Kolosh and Gercus formations) among the competent limestone of the Pila Spi and Aqra Bekhme formations. . The interpretation is based on the integration of the available geological and geophysical subsurface data, stratigraphy and tectonic published information, present day stress field measurements and a new structural interpretation based on remote sensing techniques for all the anticlines in the high folded zone. The results highlight a very complex structural situation due both to the stress distribution and portioning (from Cretaceous to Neogene) and also to the sedimentological evolution.