Structural analogy between the “piano key faults” of deep-water Lebanon and the extensional faults of the Canyonlands grabens, Utah, United States

Abstract

The Levant Basin is a deep-water basin in the eastern Mediterranean region. A large part of the basin contains a characteristic set of closely spaced normal faults, informally called the “piano key faults.” These normal faults trending NW-SE have a fairly high-frequency map-view spacing of approximately 3–4 km on average and tens to hundreds of meters of interpreted throw. A large part of the pre-Messinian sedimentary strata is faulted, including the entire Miocene-to-Oligocene sequence. At depth, all the faults consistently die out at the same intra-Eocene detachment level. This stratigraphic level is interpreted to have a regionally developed shale sequence acting as the basal detachment surface for the piano key faults. The amount of throw on the individual faults appears to decrease toward the basin margin and the faults do not extend into the adjacent basins of the broader eastern Mediterranean area.