Insights on the late Cretaceous-Eocene event in the Tunisian eastern foreland using subsurface data

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Tunisia is characterized by a specific structural location in the northern African margin, related to the geodynamic evolution of the Mediterranean basin. In fact, the Tunisian geological history strongly depends on the relative kinematics of the African-Eurasiatic plates, response to the successive opening of the Tethys and the Mesogea oceans which occurred, respectively, during the late Triassic-Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods. These extensional phases were followed, in the late Cretaceous by a compressive event subject to many controversies among many authors. In order to elucidate this event, a study based on both analysis and interpretation of seismic profiles was achieved in the eastern Tunisian foreland (Sahel and pelagian blocks). It indicates that the late Cretaceous-Eocene compressive event is characterized by NNE-SSW shortening axis and seems to be diachronous. This diachronism results from the resumption of local halokinetic structures throughout the late Cretaceous-Paleogene. The latter were active since the Jurassic-lower Cretaceous then reactivated later through the Senonian extension.