Ferid Dhahri

Faculty of Science of Gafsa | FSGF · Department of Earth Sciences

The region of Majel Bel Abbes, west-central Tunisia, is under semi-arid to arid climatic conditions. Groundwaters as the only available source are used for both domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. The exploration of the aquifer system in this region and the evaluation of its hydraulic potentialities was attempted based on a geophysical...

The flourishing agricultural activities in Regueb region, central Tunisia, engendered wide irrigated areas that require considerable abstraction of groundwater. During the two last decades the situation become alarming of and further hydrogelogical studies are required to evaluate the effect of the overexploitation of groundwater and to propose aqu...

The Jeffara basin in Southeastern Tunisia is a part of a wide Jurassic-Cretaceous petroleum system extending from the Saharan platform to the Pelagian province in eastern Tunisia and northwestern Tripolitania. In this petroleum province, El Bibane and Ezzaouia offshore fields were discovered in 1982–1986 as NE-SW folded structural traps. Their pres...

An integrated hydrogeological and geophysical survey was carried out to determine the geometry and the lateral extent of potential hydrogeological units in Gafsa North. The layering parameters (resistivity and thickness) were obtained from the interpretations of electrical resistivity survey using the vertical electrical sounding technique and the...

During the last years, facing the scarcity of water, the arid countries have moved toward the hydrogeology of rivers’ sites. Dam construction along rivers is indeed a water management process at the national level. However, this complicated task requires a wide range of engineering disciplines. Geological surveys help recognize the planned construc...

Heavy metal pollution is a challenging concern that threatens the soil environment and human health worldwide. The purpose of this work is to assess the heavy metals (Cr, Cu, Zn, and Pb) pollution in the urban and peri-urban soils in and around Setif city, eastern Algeria. The work combines chemical analysis of thirty-six soil samples, statistical...

The Mejel Bel Abbes region (west-central Tunisia) constitutes a subsiding lowland filled with Plio-Quaternary deposits. These deposits contain shallow aquifer exploited for agricultural and drinking water purposes. A good management of these groundwater resources requires recognizing their hydrodynamics and their chemical processes. The piezometric...

city scale; however, Zn and Pb concentrations are two to three times higher than the background values referred to the Chinese B n standard (GB15618-1995). The pollution indices indicate that Pb and Zn represent the highest threats among the studied pollutants and polluted wide areas of anthropogenic activities located respectively in the oldest di...

The Rohia-Sbiba graben in Central Tunisia exhibits interesting hydrogeological characteristics with complex aquifer systems encompassing several Cretaceous to Quaternary hydrogeological units. To define the geometrical development of the aquifer units and to give new insights on recharge, mineralization and hydrodynamic processes an integrated hydr...

Central Tunisia has been subjected to a complex series of successive regional tectonic phases, both extensional and compressional. This history is made even more complex by the presence of mobile Triassic evaporites that generated halokinetic deformation and partly decoupled the subsalt “basement” from the overburden. At the southern end of a majo...

A detailed hydrogeological investigation is combined with electrical resistivity imaging using the Schlumberger depth sounding method in Garaat Sened, west-central Tunisia, to elucidate the hydrogeology and the hydrodynamics of this area with emphasis on their main controlling factors. Two types of aquifers with good reservoir qualities have been h...

This study investigates the contents of lead, zinc, and cadmium in 109 near-surface soil samples collected around the abandoned mine of Fedj Lahdoum, northern Tunisia, to assess the risk of pollution they generate. The study involved some analytical procedures such as pH measurements, X-ray diffraction techniques, sequential fractionation, and geos...

geoelctric study of groudwater

The geophysical, hydrogeochemical and climatological investigations of the plio-quaternary aquifer, in Garaat Douza (Moulares-Redayef Mining Basin, Southwestern Tunisia), enabled us to identify the origin and the extension of salinization in time and space. Thus, the hydrogeological study has revealed a piezometric drawdown, showing the insufficien...

An integrated hydrogeological investigation involving geological surface data, well data (lithostratigraphical and piezometric data) and the vertical electrical sounding (VES) method was carried out in Tataouine area, Southern Tunisia to characterize the hydrogeology and the geochemistry of the Krachoua Formation aquifer. The electrical data were u...

Three hundred thirty-nine samples were collected from the Turonian-Coniacian succession that crops out in the Gafsa Basin and drilled in the Gulf of Gabes; these samples come from four outcrops and four wells and they were examined for their ostracod content. Sixty-two species belonging to twenty-nine genera were identified. They are subdivided int...

The Gafsa and Chotts intracratonic basins in south-central Tunisia are transitional zones between the Atlasic domain to the north and the Saharan platform to the south. The principal aim of this paper is to unravel the geodynamic evolution of these basins following an integrated approach including seismic, well log and gravity data. These data are...

The objective and the main contribution of this issue are dedicated to using subsurface data to delineate a basin beneath the Gulf of Tunis and its neighboring areas, and to investigating the potential of this area in terms of hydrocarbon resources. Available well data provided information about the subsurface geology beneath the Gulf of Tunis. 2D...

Two discrete Triassic salt sheets have been discovered within the Coniacian–Santonian series near the salt wall of Mezzouna, central Tunisia. The structure and the lithology of these sheets suggest two halokinetic episodes giving respectively 1) Triassic evaporitic rocks flows over a sloped basin floor resulting in probable salt glacier, and 2) red...

One hundred and seventy collected samples from Jebil section have been carefully studied for their ostracod content and referred to 41 species belonging to 20 genera. Their vertical distribution allowed to distinguish five successive associations of ostracod assemblages; two of which are correlated with the Early Lutetian, one with the Late Lutetia...

Present-day deformations occurring within both waste dump and bedrock in the Northern Table mine of Moulares, western central Tunisia, show complex landslides of kilometric dimensions. Rock bodies in this mine slide due to the shear stress concentration along a complex sliding surface. As a result of gravity displacement, these rocks display divers...

A structural and geodynamic evolution of central Tunisia is constructed from field studies and geophysical data within the Tunisian Atlassic domain. Bouguer gravity and horizontal gradient magnitude (HGM) maps indicate that computed anomalies are related to subsurface structures and are in accordance with the general structural trends of central Tu...

An integrated hydrogeological study involving the Schlumberger depth sounding method, geological data and wells data was conducted at the Sabaa Biar area of southern Tunisia to elucidate the problem of increasing groundwater salinity within The “Complexe Terminal”. The “Complexe Terminal” aquifer near Sabaa Biar region is a bi-layered aquifer compr...

Active landslides either natural or manmade constitutes serious geologic hazard that impact the earth's natural environment and poses a potential danger to life and territory. They occur frequently in both bedrocks and engineering soils within wide variety of processes and scales under all climatic conditions and terrains and engender economic, soc...

The Turonian-Coniacian series of Bireno and Douleb Members (carbonate Members of the Aleg Formation) have been examined on their sedimentology, stratigraphy and faunistic contents to provide new insights into the paleoenvironment evolution and sea-level changes in the Gafsa basin. At this scale, both the Turonian-Coniacian series are mainly made of...

The Aptian–Albian series are characterized, in Tunisia, by several variations in subsidence rates and records discrete unconformity between Albian and Aptian in central and southern Tunisia. In Central Tunisia Upper Aptian regressions were sustained until the beginning of Albian with a low sea level stand. In this paper, wells data gathered from ce...

The hydro-geochemical and isotopic data of groundwater of the aquifer of the El Kef area, North-Western Tunisia, were examined to determine the main factors controlling the groundwater chemistry and salinity as well as its hydro-geochemical evolution. This study area has a complex geological structure which is mainly controlled by halokinesis movem...

Geological and geoseismic profiles and well data gathered with field observations from the Atlasic Chain in central Tunisia highlight folded structures, tectonic events, and significant faults. These events controlled basin formation and evolution during successive Mesozoic extensional phases, followed by the tectonic inversion during the Atlasic O...

Studies on ostracofauna gathered from the Middle–Late Eocene outcropping series of Jebel Bargou anticline, central Tunisia and from an offshore well in the Pelagian Shelf (ABR1) allowed to date major biostratigraphic limits and contribute to improve the precision on the present Eocene biozonation scheme based specially on the planktonic foraminifer...

The groundwater hydrogeology of southern Tunisia emphasizes two main groundwater bodies so-called Zeuss-Koutine and south Gabes. These groundwater bodies yielding economically important storage of useful water present complex internal architecture and heterogeneity allowing exchange flows throughout permeable or/and fractured bodies. A geophysical...

Previous studies on the plate movement between Africa and Eurasia have pointed out the evidence of successive phases of transtension and transpression. The transtensional regime was active between Jurassic and Cretaceous times. It led to extensional structures which were reactivated during the Cenozoic transpressional regime as consequence of the A...

The North–South Axis of Tunisia is a major north–south-oriented chain that was developed down an important early sub-meridian-trending fault during the Alpine orogeny. This axis controlled the sedimentation and the orientation of several Tunisian Atlasic features during Mesozoic and Cenozoic times. Since the Late Cretaceous, some tectonic deformati...

Une étude de la fracturation naturelle basée sur le dénombrement et l'analyse statistique des systèmes de fractures a été menée sur des calcaires d'âge yprésien à l'affleurement aux jebels Jebil et Ousselet (Tunisie centrale). Cette étude a permis de mettre en évidence des systèmes privilégiés de fractures attestant un réservoir de forte fracturati...