Chapter from:
AAPG Memoir 68:Regional and Petroleum Geology of the Black Sea and
Surrounding Region, Edited by A.G. Robinson
AAPG Memoir 68: Regional and Petroleum Geology of the Black Sea and
Surrounding Region. Chapter 17: Structure and Regional Tectonics of the Achara-Trialet Fold
Belt and the Adjacent Rioni and Kartli Foreland Basins, Republic of Georgia, by
Chris J. Banks, Andrew G. Robinson, and Math P. Williams,
Pages 331-346
Copyright © 1997 by The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. All rights
reserved.
Chapter 17
Structure and Regional Tectonics of the Achara-Trialet Fold Belt and
the Adjacent Rioni and Kartli Foreland Basins, Republic of Georgia
Chris J. Banks
Royal Holloway University of London
Egham, Surrey, United Kingdom
Andrew G. Robinson
JKX Oil & Gas plc
Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom
Math P. Williams
Robertson Research International Ltd.
Llanrhos, Llandudno, Gwynedd, United Kingdom
ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the geology of Georgia and the Georgian
part of the Black Sea. It is based on geological maps and seismic interpretation,
integrated with well data and outcrop studies. The geology of Georgia consists of two
major thrust belts: the Greater Caucasus and the Achara-Trialet belt, separated by two
foreland basins (Rioni and Kartli) with an intervening basement culmination, the Dziruli
Massif. The Achara-Trialet belt comprises a thick Upper Cretaceous and Paleogene sequence
that restores to a rift and postrift basin of probable Paleocene age, connecting to the
Eastern Black Sea. The basin began to close by the Oligocene. Structures are detached at
Aptian and Oligocene levels and are large and open. The Rioni Basin developed mainly
during the Oligocene and the Miocene through loading by the Achara-Trialet belt folds. It
dies out into the Eastern Black Sea as the foreland basin megasequence merges with the
postrift fill of the latter. North of the Rioni Basin, the major thrust front is a large
south-dipping monocline, in front of which there are extensive salients detached in Upper
Jurassic evaporites. The Kartli Basin passes into the Kura Basin to the east, where the
foreland basin is deformed by the Greater Caucasus south-vergent thrust structures.