The control of salt supply on entrainment of an anhydrite layer within a salt diapir

Abstract

The influence of four parameters (sedimentation rate, viscosity of salt, stratigraphic location of the anhydrite layer within the salt layer, and the perturbation width) on salt supply to down-built diapirs and its entrainment capacity are studied systematically in numerical models. Model results show that these four parameters affect salt supply, and the evolution history of a salt diapir. As such, these parameters strongly influence the style and the amount of entrainment of dense inclusions into a diapir. In active diapirs (i.e. unburied diapirs), salt supply increases with increasing sedimentation rate whereas it decreases with an increase in salt viscosity. Diapirs initiating from wide perturbation provide more salt supply to feed the diapir. Presence and initial stratigraphic location of any denser layer (e.g. an anhydrite layer) within a salt layer also affects salt supply. When lateral forces are negligible, salt supply into a diapir depends on these four parameters, which directly control the entrainment of any embedded anhydrite layer into the diapir.