Aradeiba Fm

Muglad Basin -- SW Sudan and the northwestern part of South Sudan. Lowest formation in the Darfur Gr

Reference: Rashid, 2012; Jingyao, 2015; Ahmed and Ozumba, 2017

[Fig. 1: Western and Central African rift system. West African rift subsystem and Central African]

[Fig. 2: General stratigraphic column - Muglad Basin, Sudan, showing three geological cycles – Neocomian to Barremian, Aptian to Maastrichtian, and Paleocene to Pliocene - Miocene, or Quaternary and Petroleum Systems (from Ahmed and Ozumba, 2017)]

[Fig. 3: Comprehensive stratigraphic columns in the Muglad Basin (from Dou et al., 2023)]

[Fig. 4: Regional stratigraphy of the Muglad basin, SW Sudan (after Schull 1988; Dou Lirong et al. 2013 – extracted from Makeen et al., 2013)]

[Fig. 5: Location map of the Fula sub-basin in the Muglad basin including oilfields (study area) (after Dou Lirong et al. 2013 – extracted from Makeen et al., 2013)]

"Largely composed of fluvial and deltaic shales" (Lenhard et al. (2025). Toward the top of the formation, it is predominantly composed of thick gray to dark gray and purplish red shale interbedded with thin lenses of gray to light gray fine sandstone (Rashid, 2012). It has an estimated thickness of 600 (Jingyao, 2015). The Aradeiba Formation is highly variable in thickness and in sand/shale ratio. Thickest Aradeiba Formation penetration to date is in excess of 1000 m in the central part of the basin, decreasing to less than 20 m along the basin edges (Ahmed and Ozumba, 2017).

Turonian through Santonian

The sand sequences of Aradeiba Formation were interpreted to be deposited under meandering stream or distributed channel in delta plain (Rashid, 2012).