This paper proposes a model for glaciation in Oman during the late Palaeozoic ice age (LPIA) based on sedimentological and provenance analyses of the Late Carboniferous-Early Permian Al Khlata Formation, exposed in the Huqf, Oman. The results demonstrate a complex pattern of glaciation across Oman, not fully recognized in previous models. Striated glacial pavements provide evidence for two phases of ice advance: a phase of ice sheet advance towards the NE, and a second and probably younger phase where an ice centre localized on the Huqf High flowed towards the SW. The stratigraphy is constrained by previous palynological studies and is subdivided into three units, from oldest to youngest: 'early' AKP5, 'late' AKP5 and AKP5/P1. 'Early' AKP5 palaeogeography is characterized by ice-contact glacial lacustrine and deltaic sedimentary environments along the western margin of the Huqf High. Meltwater discharge flowed into the lake from ice margins located to the east, upon the Huqf High, recorded by progradational delta and fan complexes. 'Late' AKP5 palaeogeography is characterized by pro-glacial fluvialdeltaic outwash braidplains that record high-magnitude meltwater discharge from an ice margin located to the SW of the study area. The youngest undifferentiated AKP5/P1 palaeogeography is characterized by re-establishment of ice-contact glaciolacustrine conditions. The late Palaeozoic ice age (LPIA) in Arabia has been the subject of numerous studies over the last 50
U-Pb dating and Hf isotope provenance analysis of detrital zircons from the glaciogenic Lower Permian Grant Group of the Canning Basin indicates sources principally from basement terranes in central Australia, with subordinate components from terranes to the south and north. Integrating this data with field outcrop and subsurface evidence for ice-sheets, including glacial valleys and striated pavements along the southern and northern margins of the basin, suggests that continental ice sheets extended over several Precambrian upland areas of western and central Australia during the late Paleozoic ice age (LPIA). The youngest zircons constrain the maximum age for contemporaneous ice sheet development to the Late Carboniferous (Kasimovian), whereas palynology provides a minimum age of Early Permian (Asselian−Sakmarian). Considering the palynological age of the Grant Group within the context of regional and global climate proxies, the main phase of continental ice sheet growth was possibly in the Ghzelian−Asselian. The presence of ice sheets older than Kasimovian in western and central Australia remains difficult to prove given a regional gap in deposition possibly covering the mid-Bashkirian to early Ghzelian within the main depocentres and even larger along basin margins, and the poor evidence for older Carboniferous glacial facies. There is also no evidence for extensive glacial facies younger than mid-Sakmarian in this region as opposed to eastern Australia where the youngest regional glacial phase was Guadalupian.
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