Age, budget and dynamics of an active salt extrusion in Iran

Abstract

The Hormuz salt of Kuh-e-Namak, Iran began rising through its Phanerozoic cover in Jurassic times and had surfaced by Cretaceous times. In Miocene times, the still-active Zagros folds began to develop and the salt is still extruding to feed a massive topographic dome and two surface flows of salt which have previously been called salt glaciers but are here called namakiers. Two crude but independent estimates for the rate of salt extrusion and loss are shown to balance the salt budget if the current salt dynamics are assumed to be in steady state. First, to replace the extrusive salt likely to be lost in solution in the annual rainfall, the salt must rise at an average velocity of about 11 cm a −1. Second, the foliation pattern shows that the extruding (and partially dissolved) salt column spreads under its own weight. The maximum height of the salt dome is consistent with a viscous fluid with a viscosity of 2.6 × 10 17 poises extruding from its orifice at a rate of almost 17 cm a −1. Both estimates are consistent in indicating that salt can extrude onto the surface 42–85 times faster than the average long term rate at which salt diapirs rise to the surface. The structure, fabrics, textures and deformation mechanisms of the impure halite all change along the path of the extrusive salt from the dome down the length of both namakiers. Such changes tend to occur when the flowing salt encounters changes in its boundary conditions, and the recognition of buried namakiers is discussed in the light of such observations. Episodes of salt flow at a rate of 0.5 m per day have been measured along the margin of the N namakier after significant rain showers. Such brief episodes of rapid flow alternate with long periods when the namakier is dry and stationary. The shape of the colour bands cropping out on the N namakier indicate that the flow over the surface of impure salt with a mylonitic texture obeys a power law with n ≈ 3. Although the reported annual rainfall has the potential of dissolving both namakiers in about 2000 years, a superimposed thin marine cover may protect static parts of them for as long as 30,000 to 300,000 years.