Flexural plate subsidence, sedimentation rates, and structural development of the super-deep South Caspian Basin

Late Tertiary tectonic evolution of northern Iran: A case for simple crustal folding

“…The age of the sedimentary cover in the Caspian basin is well constrained only back to the Oligocene (Devlin et al, 1999;Allen et al, 2002) but probably goes back to the Jurassic (Devlin et al, 1999). In the central south Caspian the upper ∼10 km of the sedimentary cover has been deposited since ∼10 Ma with the bulk of this (∼6 km) deposited during the Pliocene and the upper ∼3 km deposited during the Quaternary (Nadirov et al, 1997;Devlin et al, 1999;Allen et al, 2002). Little data is available for the portion of the basin adjacent to the Alborz in Iranian waters.…”

“…1). The region is unique in that over N200 km, it exhibits ∼25 km of basement relief between the crest of the Alborz Mountains and the basement of the south Caspian basin, ∼15 km of which developed over the last ∼12 Ma (Nadirov et al, 1997;Devlin et al, 1999;Axen et al, 2001;Guest et al, 2006b). Furthermore, the Alborz have a crustal thickness of only 35-40 km which is unusually thin for a 100 km wide, 3-5 km high mountain range and is interpreted to indicate that it is not compensated by a lithospheric root (Dehghani and Makris, 1984;Rodgers et al, 1997;Seber et al, 1997).…”

3D geometry of a shale-cored anticline in the western South Caspian Basin (offshore Azerbaijan)

“…Axial traces that switch from NW-SE to NNW-SSE, along the western margin of the SCB ( Fig. 1; e.g., Nadirov, 1985;Nadirov et al, 1997;Tagiyev et al, 1997;Lyberis and Manby, 1999;Jackson et al, 2002;Engdahl et al, 2006).…”

The driving forces behind the Caspian Sea mean water level oscillations

“…Although its tectonic origin is controversial, it is generally considered as a back-arc basin located to the north of the Neo-Tethyan arc (Brunet et al 2003) rather than a remnant of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean (Nadirov et al 1997). The south Caspian basin is characterized by very thick Mesozoic-Cenozoic sediments up to 25-30 km, making it a unique inland depression (Mangino and Priestley 1998;Lerche and Bagirov 1999;Jackson et al 2002;Brunet et al 2003).…”