A second geophysical field survey was undertaken in the Azraq Basin in October 2012.
The thickness of the sedimentary deposits was determined along two perpendicular transects crossing the entire Qa Al Azraq mudflat. In the mudflat centre, the sediments reach down to a depth of roughly 70 m. Surprisingly, we found the deepest location towards the northern edge of the mudflat with approximately 120 m.
The mudflat consists of thick sequences of hyper-saline clays. This high conductive environment is a challenging task when applying Transient Electromagnetic (TEM) methods. Large transmitter and receiver arrays, thick transmitter cables and an appropriate cooling system was required to ensure long data sets with good data quality. Besides that, the delicate equipment had to be protected against sandstorms and dust vortex.