The role of salt layers in the hangingwall deformation of kinked-planar extensional faults: Insights from 3D analogue models and comparison with the Parentis Basin

Ferrer, Oriol; Roca, Eduard; Vendeville, Bruno C.

doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2014.09.013

Cited by 31 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The dry sand was chosen to simulate the brittle deformation of upper crustal sedimentary rocks (Horsfield, 1977;McClay, 1990), and the PDMS polymer was used as our salt analog (Weijermars, 1986), as in most analog modeling studies Nalpas and Brun, 1993;Vendeville et al, 1995;Withjack and Callaway, 2000;Dooley et al, 2005;Soto et al, 2007;Ferrer et al, 2014Ferrer et al, , 2016. Silica sand has a Mohr-Coulomb behavior at moderate values of normal stress, and its mechanical properties were measured using a ring shear tester at the Fault Dynamics Research Group Laboratory.…”

Section: Modeling Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Continued extension was accommodated by the formation of a salt-detached ramp-syncline basin lying above the salt unit and above the subsalt ramp syncline (Figures 4, 6c, and 7c). The lithostatic load produced by synkinematic sedimentation -combined with the subsalt fault slip -triggered salt flow from the areas with high vertical load (basin depocenter) to the edges of the salt-detached ramp-syncline basin, where the vertical load was lower (e.g., Kehle, 1988;Hudec and Jackson, 2007;Ferrer et al, 2014). This gave rise to salt-inflated areas bounding the salt-detached ramp syncline (Figure 7c).…”

Section: Second Phase: 7−15 CM Of Extensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As a result, the interaction between the subsalt fault structure and the main synrift depocenters is characterized by multiple rift events with deposition of salt during and after the extensional phase (Ziegler, 1988;Balkwill and Legall, 1989;Tankard et al, 1989;Dercourt et al, 1993;Rasmussen et al, 1998;Jackson et al, 2000;Alves et al, 2002). Consequently, the salt shows lateral variations in thickness (Jackson and Vendeville, 1994;Coward and Steward, 1995;Ferrer et al, 2008Ferrer et al, , 2014Rowan, 2014). Furthermore, most of these basins were subsequently partially or totally tectonically inverted during the Late Cretaceous -Cenozoic, e.g., Parentis (Mathieu, 1986) or Lusitanian Basins (Alves et al, 2002) or incorporated into a fold-and-thrust belt, e.g., the Organyà (Muñoz, 1992) and Cameros Basins (Guimerà et al, 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Roure et al (1992) and McClay (1990) use a prekinematic sand pack (an analog of brittle materials in nature) over a rigid wooden footwall block and a plastic sheet (used to reproduce the fault geometry and fault motion) to study the formation of ramp synclines. Soto et al (2007) and Ferrer et al (2014) follow the previous technique, and they use different fault geometries -listric, ramp-flat listric, planar, and kinked -but they also tested the role of a shallow Figure 1. Conceptual models of (a) a ramp syncline developed in a salt-free extensional tectonic system, modified from McClay (1990), (b) a minibasin developed in a a salt tectonic system, and (c) a salt-detached ramp-syncline basin developed in an extensional salt tectonic system, modified from Ferrer et al (2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, Ferrer et al (2014) consider a synkinematic ductile layer. Furthermore, McClay (1989), Buchanan and McClay (1991), and Yamada and McClay (2003) use different techniques to previously extend the model and then reverse the direction of motion to produce the subsequent inversion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Roma

Vidal-Royo²,

McClay

et al. 2018

Interpretation

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Salt-detached ramp-syncline basins are developed in extensional settings and are characterized by wide synclinal sedimentary basins detached on salt and formed above the hanging wall of active ramp-flat-ramp extensional faults. They are rarely fault bounded; instead, they are bounded by salt structures that are in general parallel to the major subsalt structures. As such, the formation of these extensional systems requires the presence of (1) a subsalt extensional fault with significant dip changes and (2) an evaporitic unit above the extensional fault, which partially or completely decouples the basin from a subsalt extensional fault. Saltdetached ramp-syncline basins have a significant exploration potential when their extensional geometry is preserved and when they have undergone positive tectonic inversion and consequent uplift and fold amplification. However, in some cases, their subsalt geometry may not be fully recognizable, especially when subsalt seismic imaging is poor. To obtain a deeper understanding of the geometry and kinematic evolution of these salt-detached ramp-syncline basins, we performed a series of analog modeling experiments, in which the models' cross sections had been sequentially restored. Analog models and restoration results reveal that the kinematic evolution of the salt-detached ramp-syncline basins during extension and inversion depends on the interaction of different factors that may function simultaneously. Our results are used to improve the interpretation of seismic sections in inverted Mesozoic salt-detached ramp-syncline basins on the Atlantic margins, where subsalt faults are not well-imaged, and thus the suprasalt geometries must be used to infer the subsalt structure.

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