Hassi R'Mel ( ar, حاسي الرمل,

Berber language The Berber languages, also known as the Amazigh languages or Tamazight,, ber, label=Tuareg Tifinagh, ⵜⵎⵣⵗⵜ, ) are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They comprise a group of closely related languages spoken by Berber commun ...

: Ḥasi Eṛṛmel) is a town in

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

located near the 18th largest gas field worldwide. Hassi R'Mel is located in

Laghouat Province Laghouat ( ar, ولاية الأغواط) is one of the forty-eight provinces (''wilaya'') of Algeria. It is located in the north central part of Algeria. The province borders Tiaret Province to the north, El Bayadh Province to the west, Ghardai ...

northwest of Ghardaïa. It is the capital of Hassi R'Mel District. Hassi R'Mel has an

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

. Hassi R'Mel is a hub for natural gas and oil pipelines running to coastal cities of

Arzew Arzew or Arzeu ( ar, أرزيو Berber; ) is a port city in Algeria, 25 miles (40 km) from Oran. It is the capital of Arzew District, Oran Province. History Antiquity Like the rest of North Africa, the site of modern-day Arzew was ori ...

, Algiers, and

Skikda Skikda ( ar, سكيكدة; formerly Philippeville from 1838 to 1962 and Rusicade in ancient times) is a city in northeastern Algeria and a port on the Mediterranean. It is the capital of Skikda Province and Skikda District. History The Phoeni ...

. The National Centre For Dispatching Gas is also the starting point for the Maghreb-Europe, Trans-Mediterranean, Medgaz and Galsi gas export pipelines supplying Southern Europe. The town is the planned final destination of the Trans-Saharan gas pipeline. Hassi R'Mel is also home to an integrated solar combined cycle power station, the first of its kind in Algeria.

Geology

The Hassi R'Mel gas field is a

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago (Year#Abbreviations yr and ya, Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 ...

gas field discovered in 1956 with the HR-1 well and located in a

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex up in which the hinge or crest is the ...

of the M'zab dorsal structure separating the Western Org

Paleozoic The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838 by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and ' ...

basin to the west and the Oued Mya basin to the east. Cambrian rhyolite forms the basement which is overlain by the Tassili Cambro-

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period million years ago (Mya) to the start of the Silurian Period Mya. T ...

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates ...

group, a Siluro- Devonian shale and then

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sa ...

s. The A, B and C reservoir sandstones are Permo-

with a total thickness of about 115 m and sealed by

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch of the Triassic Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch and followed by the Early Jurassic Epoch. ...

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

and shale.Magloire, P. R., 1970, Triassic Gas Field of Hassi er R'Mel, Algeria, AAPG Memoir 14: Geology of Giant Petroleum Fields, Tulsa: AAPG, pp. 495-497.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hassi R'mel Communes of Laghouat Province