Abstract
The late Jurassic Campeche salt basin in the southern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) forms a passive margin foldbelt of late Middle Miocene to the Recent age. The Campeche salt basin is defined by a 200-km-wide updip zone of listric, normal faults of the Comalcalco and Macuspana rifts, and a coeval, 300-km-wide, downdip zone of deeper-water, salt-cored folds, detachment folds with kink bands, thrusts, and diapirs. This study integrates shipborne magnetic data with 28,612 km of pre-stack, depth-migrated, 2D seismic data to reconstruct the geometry of the top of the Paleozoic basement and base-salt topography above which the passive margin foldbelt evolved. Magnetic and basement mapping reveals that the 40-55-km-wide Campeche segment of the 400 km long GOM outer marginal trough marks the limit of the northwest-directed passive margin foldbelt. The elongated basement depression of the outer marginal trough combined with a basement step-up fault along the edge of Jurassic oceanic crust localizes the thickest Bajocian-early Callovian salt. The outer marginal trough controls the arcuate, northwestward, and downdip path of salt flowage within the passive margin foldbelt.
Published Version
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