The effects of base-salt relief on salt flow and suprasalt deformation patterns — Part 1: Flow across simple steps in the base of salt

Abstract

Passive margins underlain by a salt detachment are typically interpreted as kinematically linked zones of updip extension and downdip contraction separated by a zone of translation above a smoothly dipping base of salt. However, salt flow is affected by the base-of-salt geometry across which it flows, and early-stage gravity gliding induced by basin tilt may be complicated by the presence of salt-thickness changes caused by the pre-existing base-salt relief. We investigate these effects using physical models. Dip-parallel steps generate strike-slip fault zones separating domains of differential downslope translation and structural styles, provided the overburden is thin enough. If the overburden is thicker, it resists breakup, but a change in the structural trend occurs across the step. Steps with mild obliquity to the dip direction produce transtensional and transpressional faults in the cover separating structural domains. Deformation complexity in the overburden increases where base-salt steps strike at a high angle to salt flow, and it is especially dependent on the ratio between the thick ([Formula: see text]) and thin ([Formula: see text]) salt across the step at the base of salt. Where the salt-thickness ratio ([Formula: see text]) is high, basal drag generates major flux mismatches, resulting in a contractional thickening of the salt and associated overburden shortening in thin salt above a base-salt high block. Shortening is transient and superseded by extension as the salt thickening allows the flow velocity to increase. When transitioning off a base-salt high block into a low block, the greater flux within the thick salt results in a monocline with extensional and contractional hinges. Structures are further deformed as they translate through these hinge zones. Our physical models demonstrate that extensional diapirs and compressional fold belts can be initiated anywhere on a slope as the salt accelerates and decelerates across base-salt relief. A fold belt from the Campos Basin, offshore Brazil, is used to illustrate these processes.