The Department of geoscience at the college of Science discussed a master's thesis entitled A petrophysical, mineralogical and geochemical study of the middle shale unit(the fourth thrust unit) in the Zubair formation in the southern Rumaila field in Basrah, southern Iraq, by researcher Hussein Ali Hussein. 

The study aims to conduct a comprehensive study of the petrophysical properties of the middle shale member (the fourth thrust unit) of the Zubair formation in the southern Rumaila field, classify the reservoir into distinctive rock units, identify productive and non-productive layers, and conduct a detailed geochemical (XRF) and mineralogical (XRD) study of samples of the study area. The study included determining the petrophysical properties of the reservoir such as porosity, permeability, shale size, saturation with liquids, identification of clay and non-clay minerals and the extent of their influence on the characteristics of the reservoir, identifying the main oxides and trace elements to find out the environmental conditions during sedimentation. The results have concluded that the two subunits (20 and 25) are the main production units and the subunit (10) contains the most reserves of hydrocarbons, as well as the sedimentary environment was determined to be a Delta environment with acidic conditions, as well as the mineral Alite was identified as one of the most influential clay minerals on the characteristics of the reservoir. The study recommends conducting a similar study of the northern part of the field and comparing the results with the current study, thus determining which reservoirs are better in terms of production and reserves of hydrocarbons.