Style and timing of salt tectonics in the Dniepr-Donets Basin (Ukraine) from seismic data

Abstract

The Ukrainian Dniepr-Donets Basin (DDB) is a Late Palaeozoic intracratonic rift basin, with sedimentary thicknesses up to 19 km, displaying the effects of salt tectonics during its entire history of formation, from Late Devonian rifting to the Tertiary. Hundreds of concordant and discordant salt structures formed during this time. It is demonstrated that the variety of styles of salt structure formation in the DDB provide important constraints on understanding the triggering and driving mechanisms of salt kinematics in sedimentary basins in general. Specifically, syn- and post-rift regional extensional and compressional tectonic events were very important mechanisms involved in the initiation of salt movements in the DDB. Other geological processes were significant factors in the development of a variety of salt geometries once salt flow had been triggered by tectonic disturbance of the unstable equilibrium between salt layers and their overburden.