3D Digital Outcrop Models Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) Hanifa Fm - Wadi Birk, Central Saudi Arabia: Shallow marine carbonate platform sediments equivalent to Arabian subsurface reservoirs
Description
In February 2019 drones were utilized to collect aerial imagery of the Tuwaiq mountain outcrops in central Saudi Arabia exposing the Hanifa Formation at Wadi Birk. A 4x4 km2 was selected for the drone survey, where the study area was scanned by a fixed-wing (Wingtra) UAV for top-down view and a hexacopter (DJI M-600) for cliffs (oblique view). Both the drones were equipped with a 42-megapixel camera. During the data collection, a total of >10,000 photographs with 70% overlap were collected. Ground control points (GCPs) were laid before the survey in the study area. The imagery for the nadir survey was collected from 130 m above the ground elevation in auto mode, whereas the oblique cliff imagery was collected manually at 50-100 m distance away from the cliff face. The aerial imagery was then stitched using the Structure from Motion (SfM) technique (Pix4D and Agisoft) to develop the 3D Digital Outcrop Models. A total of eight models have been created. Seven models are for the oblique cuts of the cliff and vary in resolution from 2x2 cm2 per pixel to 5x5 cm2 per pixel, whereas one is a top-down view/nadir model that is approx. 5x5 cm2 per pixel in resolution. This dataset provides the location of the Digital Outcrop Models and the .obj files for the models. These outcrop datasets display the Late Jurassic – Oxfordian Hanifa Formation, which is in this location composed of shallow marine lagoonal carbonate platform strata. These are equivalent in facies to many Oxfordian and Kimmeridgian subsurface reservoirs of the Arabian platform and elsewhere in the Middle East.