Arabia collides with Eurasia
The Zagros Mountains begin to rise, and the folds they make will trap most of the world's oil.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 7 million years
- Known to
- ± 4 million years
- Era
- Oligocene, Cenozoic
As the Neotethys ocean between Arabia and Eurasia is consumed, the two continental margins meet and the Zagros belt starts to grow across what is now Iran and northern Iraq. The collision produces long, remarkably regular anticlines in a thick sedimentary pile that includes both rich source rocks and evaporite seals. That geometry is why the Zagros foreland holds the largest concentration of conventional petroleum on the planet, and why the region's economics and politics have been shaped by a Cenozoic collision.