Instability related to the Somali Civil War and previous political upheaval has limited geologic research in places while heightening the importance of groundwater resources for vulnerable populations.
The Qabri Bahar Complex formed in the Paleoproterozoic through the Mesoproterozoic with mafic and granitoid units, as well as rocks metamorphosed to granulite grade (part of the concept of metamorphic facies).
Major Event II, more than 700 million years ago, marked deformation, partial melting (also known as anataxis) and rocks metamorphosed up to amphibolite grade.
The sequence of events in Somalia in the Proterozoic are correlated with the Arabian-Nubian Shield to the north, which experienced igneous activity related to subduction and witnessed the formation of marginal basins and island arcs.
The marine transgression of the Tethys Ocean flooded large parts of East Africa and Arabia and new sedimentary rock units were deposited.
In the Luuq-Mandera Basin, oil exploration found Late Triassic to Early Jurassic clastic sediments, evaporite and carbonate deposits, overlain by shales from the Tethys marine transgression.
The opening of the Gulf of Aden and the uplift of the Somali Plateau created brackish basins, which filled with marine deposits in the Miocene and Oligocene.
Outcrops of these rock units are limited to a few coastal areas in Somalia, but rapid faulting created offshore basins with up to two kilometers of sediments from the late Cenozoic.
Small amounts of gypsum, limestone, sea salt and sepiolite were mined during the instability brought on by the ongoing Somali Civil War, although the conflict halted oil exploration which had taken place in the 1980s.