Different modes of the Late Cretaceous–Early Tertiary inversion in the North German and Polish basins

Abstract

Several selected seismic lines are used to show and compare the modes of Late-Cretaceous–Early Tertiary inversion within the North German and Polish basins. These seismic data illustrate an important difference in the allocation of major zones of basement (thick-skinned) deformation and maximum uplift within both basins. The most important inversion-related uplift of the Polish Basin was localised in its axial part, the Mid-Polish Trough, whereas the basement in the axial part of the North German Basin remained virtually flat. The latter was uplifted along the SW and to a smaller degree the NE margins of the North German Basin, presently defined by the Elbe Fault System and the Grimmen High, respectively. The different location of the basement inversion and uplift within the North German and Polish basins is interpreted to reflect the position of major zones of crustal weakness represented by the WNW-ESE trending Elbe Fault System and by the NW-SE striking Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone, the latter underlying the Mid-Polish Trough. Therefore, the inversion of the Polish and North German basins demonstrates the significance of an inherited basement structure regardless of its relationship to the position of the basin axis. The inversion of the Mid-Polish Trough was connected with the reactivation of normal basement fault zones responsible for its Permo-Mesozoic subsidence. These faults zones, inverted as reverse faults, facilitated the uplift of the Mid-Polish Trough in the order of 1–3 km. In contrast, inversion of the North German Basin rarely re-used structures active during its subsidence. Basement inversion and uplift, in the range of 3–4 km, was focused at the Elbe Fault System which has remained quiescent in the Triassic and Jurassic but reproduced the direction of an earlier Variscan structural grain. In contrast, N-S oriented Mesozoic grabens and troughs in the central part of the North German Basin avoided significant inversion as they were oriented parallel to the direction of the inferred Late Cretaceous–Early Tertiary compression. The comparison of the North German and Polish basins shows that inversion structures can follow an earlier subsidence pattern only under a favourable orientation of the stress field. A thick Zechstein salt layer in the central parts of the North German Basin and the Mid-Polish Trough caused mechanical decoupling between the sub-salt basement and the supra-salt sedimentary cover. Resultant thin-skinned inversion was manifested by the formation of various structures developed entirely in the supra-salt Mesozoic–Cenozoic succession. The Zechstein salt provided a mechanical buffer accommodating compressional stress and responding to the inversion through salt mobilisation and redistribution. Only in parts of the NGB and MPT characterised by either thin or missing Zechstein evaporites, thick-skinned inversion directly controlled inversion-related deformations of the sedimentary cover. Inversion of the Permo-Mesozoic fill within the Mid-Polish Trough was achieved by a regional elevation above uplifted basement blocks. Conversely, in the North German Basin, horizontal stress must have been transferred into the salt cover across the basin from its SW margin towards the basins centre. This must be the case since compressional deformations are concentrated mostly above the salt and no significant inversion-related basement faults are seismically detected apart from the basin margins. This strain decoupling in the interior of the North German Basin was enhanced by the presence of the Elbe Fault System which allowed strain localization in the basin floor due to its orientation perpendicular to the inferred Late Cretaceous–Early Tertiary far-field compression.