Evolution of salt-related structures in compressional settings
- Institut Francais du Petrole, Rueil-Malmaison (France)
- Total, Paris La Defense (France)
Sandbox experiments analyzed by computerized X-ray tomography provide relevant models of salt-related contractional structures and improve understanding of the relative importance of the many parameters influencing structural style. In front of thin-skinned fold and thrust belts, the salt layers provide decollement surfaces, which allow the horizontal strain to propagate far toward the edge of the foreland. As shortening increases, older structures forming in front of the system can be overtaken by out-of-sequence faulting and folding. The very low friction coefficient of salt layers induces a symmetric stress system. This promotes pop-up structures rather than asymmetric thrust faults. Salt extrusions are related to former salt ridges or salt walls squeezed by compression and dragged along thrust planes or to local low-pressure zones along crestal tear faults during folding. The salt that spreads out from the fault is rapidly dissolved. The resultant surface collapse structures are progressively filled by a mixture of Recent sediments and reprecipitated evaporates. Salt pinch-outs, either depositional or structural in origin, are a major controlling factor of the deformation geometry in fold and thrust belts. They trigger, either locally or regionally, contractional structures, including folds and thrusts, in rapidly prograding passive margins deforming by gravity gliding. In this structural context, salt pinch-outs also thicken due to differential loading and gravity spreading. The structural complexity in inverted grabens or in basement-involved orogenic belts where salt is present is the outcome of many factors. The salt thickness, the preexisting extensional structures, the synsalt and postsalt rifting, and the related distribution of older salt structures and sediments all localize folds and thrusts during later contraction.
- OSTI ID:
- 585154
- Journal Information:
- AAPG Memoir, Journal Issue: 65; Other Information: PBD: 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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