“The Age of Salt in the Gulf of Mexico Basin — Reply

Wilson, H. Hugh

doi:10.1111/j.1747-5457.1994.tb00141.x

Cited by 2 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 6 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…In none of the published references to microfauna recovered from above, below and within offshore salt sheets is the possibility of sedimentary reworking discussed. This is surprising because large-scale fossil reworking during sedimentary regressions is very common in the Gulf of Mexico Basin (Primoli Silva and McNulry, 1984;Jiang and Watkins, 1992;Wilson, 1994). In the Pleistocene sediments recovered in the Joides No.…”

Section: Anomalous Zones In Intra-neogene Salt Offshore Northern Gulfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Halite deposition could be terminated by a breakdown of basin barriers and resumption of normal sedimentation. The author (Wilson 1975(Wilson , 1994 has previously suggested that deposition of the Mediterranean Messinian salt is an appropriate analogue for this type of sedimentation. The Messinian Canyons below the Rhone and Nile deltas (Cita, 1982) may be analogous to Eocene (Wilcox) and Oligocene (Heterostegina) canyons on the Gulf Coast (Galloway et al, 1991).…”

Section: Anomalous Zones In Intra-neogene Salt Offshore Northern Gulfmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Innumerable papers have been published in the past ten years with interpretations of allochthonous salt sheet emplacement, but the lack of consensus on the emplacement mechanism provokes doubt regarding the application of model studies to a natural process (Wilson, 1994). The concept of salt sill emplacement (Spencer and Sharp, 1993) was dismissed by Hossack (1994) who adheres to the idea of emplacement by sub-aqueous salt glaciers.…”

Section: The Concept Of Allochthonous Saltmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The concept of salt sill emplacement (Spencer and Sharp, 1993) was dismissed by Hossack (1994) who adheres to the idea of emplacement by sub-aqueous salt glaciers. As pointed out by the writer (Wilson, 1994), the assumption that a carapace of sediments rides on top of a submarine salt glacier to protect it from dissolution is geologically unrealistic and does not explain the conformable relationship of condensed sedimentary sections above salt sheets or the inclusion of numerous conformable sedimentary layers and laminations within the salt. Other explanations for the protection of extruding salt against dissolution were provided by , who visualized unroofed salt venting like an unconfined, slowmoving fountain.…”

Section: The Concept Of Allochthonous Saltmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, despite the subsurface control from innumerable wells and dense seismic coverage together with the most detailed analysis of surface exposures, some outstanding problems remain. In earlier publications (Wilson 1975(Wilson , 1977(Wilson , 1987(Wilson , 1993(Wilson , 1994, substantial evidence was presented in support of the conclusion that much of the salt in the Gulf of Mexico Basin is of Tertiary age in contrast to the general consensus that onshore and offshore deposits are all Jurassic (Callovian) (Salvador, 1992). Comments on the writer's evidence for Tertiary evaporites were provided, for example, by Hossack (1994) whose convictions are that all the salt within Tertiary sediments is allochthonous and was emplaced by submarine glaciers via piercement diapirs from a very deep Jurassic source.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Extensional Evolution of the Gulf of Mexico Basin and the Deposition of Tertiary Evaporites

Wilson¹

2003

Journal of Petroleum Geology

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Current interpretations of the evolution of the Gulf of Mexico Basin are guided by the critical assumption that all the salt in this huge basin is Jurassic and time‐equivalent to the Louann salt of the interior evaporite basins of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. This assumption forces the interpretation that extensive salt sheets that now reside within Eocene to Plio‐Pleistocene stratigraphic levels are allochthonous, having been emplaced by several episodes of Jurassic salt piercement and horizontal flow as shallow salt sills or sub‐aqueous salt glaciers during Tertiary sedimentation. This interpretation is contested from several geological viewpoints. The uncontaminated Louann salt differs substantially from salt of the coastal, offshore northern Gulf and Mexican Saline Basin, in all of which the salt carries multiple shaley layers and exotic material. The intra‐salt deformation of offshore sheets appears from cores and seismic profiles to be much less severe than would be expected if it had been emplaced via several generations of deep piercement diapirs. The intra‐salt shale laminations in the Belle Isle Salt Mine, Southern Louisiana, carry Oligocene fauna and are so closely conformable with primary salt layering that their contemporaneity with the salt is a valid conclusion. Because the Belle Isle Shale Zone is so similar to shaley zones encountered in offshore sheets, a contemporaneous origin for them is also implied. The mixed Tertiary fauna found within, and below salt sheets is so typical of sedimentary reworking that its origin from evaporite basin margins is a logical conclusion. The Gulf of Mexico Basin is unique as the presumed depository of multiple allochthonous salt sheets. Salt piercements in the remote Kavir Basin of Iran have been proposed as an analogue for the emplacement of salt canopies, but there is no sub‐surface control in the Kavir Basin and the canopy concept is not unanimously accepted. Furthuremore, the popular view that salt sheets were emplaced by submarine salt glaciers during successive episodes of piercement diapirism is doubted because of the complete absence of glaciers in todays halokinetically active basin. The preservation from solution of purported submarine salt extrusions lacks both experimental and credible geological support. Angular sub‐salt contacts of many offshore salt sheets in the northern continental slope have been interpreted as sheer or thrust contacts. However, thrusting seems unlikely in an overall extensional environment and it is here concluded that the angular contacts represent sub‐salt unconformities and that the Cretaceous and older exotic blocks found in some piercement domes have been plucked from a base‐salt unconformity surface. There is much circum‐Gulf evidence for extensional fracturing of the basement during the Tertiary period which, it is thought, supports the expectation of basement block faults, now hidden from view below thick Tertiary sediments; these faults governed sedimentation into depocenters as the basin expanded. It is concluded...

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Section: Anomalous Zones In Intra-neogene Salt Offshore Northern Gulfmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Anomalous Zones In Intra-neogene Salt Offshore Northern Gulfmentioning

confidence: 99%