Foldbelts with early salt withdrawal and diapirism: Physical model and examples from the northern Gulf of Mexico and the Flinders Ranges, Australia

Tectonic inversion of salt-detached ramp-syncline basins as illustrated by analog modeling and kinematic restoration

“…In contrast, at the same point at the end of the inversion (Figure 8), the joining area of the welds increases. The inherited salt wall, above the basinward rollover, at the end of extension was squeezed shut with the consequent development of secondary welds and the formation of a thrust at the salt wall pedestal (Rowan and Vendeville, 2006;Dooley et al, 2015) (Figure 8a). At this point, subsalt and suprasalt deformations became coupled.…”

“…Where salt evacuation is the main mechanism controlling their growth, synclinal basins may develop as a consequence of sinking minibasins (Figure 1b). In this case, minibasins are small basins largely surrounded by salt walls and in the simplest cases, they contain vertically stacked depocenters (Jackson and Talbot, 1991;Rowan and Vendeville, 2006;Hudec et al, 2009;Callot et al, 2016;Figure 1b). Additionally, synclinal basins may also develop in hybrid systems (i.e., involving subsalt extensional faults and salt evacuation).…”

Basin geometry and salt diapirs in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia: Insights gained from geologically-constrained modelling of potential field data

“…Increasing economic interest has led to a wealth of studies aimed at better constraining the geometry of salt welds and diapirs at depth (Al-Zoubi et al, 2002;Moulin et al, 2005;Lamarche and Scheck-Wenderoth, 2005;Stewart, 2006;Rowan and Vendeville, 2006;Malinowski et al, 2007), the dynamics of the evaporites' mobilization (Vendeville and Jackson, 1992a,b;Poliakov et al, 1993;Jackson et al, 1995;Vendeville, 2002;Massimi et al, 2007; or the control exerted by regional tectonic stresses on the evaporites mobilization (Sans and Koyi, 2001;Costa and Vendeville, 2001;Brun and Fort, 2004).…”

“…1-3;Preiss, 2000). The Adelaide Basin offers a world class field laboratory for the study of diapiric structures during both extensional and compressional tectonic stages (Dyson, 1996(Dyson, , 1998(Dyson, , 1999(Dyson, , 2001Rowan and Vendeville, 2006). The wealth of data and geological observations available, either directly in the Flinders Ranges and Mount Lofty Ranges of South Australia or from large publicly available geophysical datasets (e.g., potential field data, Figs.…”

Erosional sculpting of the Caprera confined deep-sea fan as a result of distal basin-spilling processes (eastern Sardinian margin, Tyrrhenian Sea)

“…However, since the pioneeristic work of Gorsline and Emery (1959) that first envisaged the spilling of sediments from basin to basin along a complex slope, the exploration of the seafloor has shown that sediment dispersal patterns and the geometries of the resultant depositional bodies are largely influenced by seafloor topography (Teng andGorsline, 1989, Prather et al, 1998;Weimer et al 1998;Kneller andMcCaffrey, 1999, Gervais et al, 2004;Amy et al, 2004;Gee and Gawthorpe, 2006;Amy et al, 2007). Topographically complex slopes are originated by thrust faults, often associated with shale or salt diapirism (Demyttenaere et al, 2000;Pirmez et al, 2000;Rowan and Vendeville, 2006), or can be the result of tilted basement fault-blocks or tectonically inherited horst-and-graben structures (Ravnas and Steel, 1998). Turbidite systems developed on topographically complex slopes are characterized by stratigraphic architectures that highly diverge from those of turbiditic fans that are free to spread over flat, wide basin plains Winker and Booth, 2000;Smith, 2004).…”