The role of salt layers in the hangingwall deformation of kinked-planar extensional faults: Insights from 3D analogue models and comparison with the Parentis Basin

Abstract

Using an analogue modelling approach, this work investigates the role played by salt in the hangingwall deformation of an extensional fault. Models' set-up included a wooden block simulating the footwall of different kinked-planar fault geometries flattening at depth. Above these faults, the hangingwall was modelled using only sand or sand overlain by pre- or syn-kinematic silicone putty.Regardless of the stage at which was deposited, the silicone appears as an efficient decoupling level that changes the deformation mode of the overlying sand layers. Above the silicone layers, the rollover panels only continue to develop up to the welding of the underlying silicone. Afterwards, they do not grow anymore and all shearing induced by the underlying fault bends is accommodated along the tilted silicone layer that acts as an extensional shear band. Further fault slip produces near-horizontal growth stratal geometries that can be easily misinterpreted as a syn-rift/post-rift boundary. In addition, the differential sedimentary loading of syn-kinematic layers triggers the upslope silicone flow from the hangingwall depocenters towards the rollover shoulders. This migration results in the formation of silicone welds at the rollover limbs and the growth of gentle silicone-cored anticlines above or near the rollover shoulder that are locally pierced by diapirs and walls.These experimental results fit with the Parentis Basin structure that, formed from the motion of lithosphere-scale kinked-planar extensional faults, includes salt inflated anticlines above their rollover shoulders and an intra-Albian unconformity interpreted now as syn-kinematic.