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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database
Houston Geological Society Bulletin
Abstract
Abstract: Towards an Understanding of the Development of Salt-Related Overburden Structures
in the Southern North Sea Basin, U.K.
By
1Conoco, Houston
2Conoco, UK
The present-day structural configuration of
the Mesozoic and younger section in the
Southern North Sea Basin results from the
complex interaction between extension, salt
tectonics, inversion, and subsidence that
began in the late Triassic and continued well
into the Tertiary. Interpretation of high-resolution
3-D seismic data, combined with
2-D cross-section restorations and new insights
into salt tectonics derived from scaled
analog- and numerical-model experiments,
has prompted a reevaluation of the development
of salt-related structures in the basin.
Several key aspects of the developmental
history can be well explained using
the concepts of diapiric rise and fall and
inversion-related diapiric rejuvenation as
derived from experimental data.
A wide variety of salt-related structures
occur in the Southern North Sea Basin, including
graben-diapir systems, salt walls,
and salt swells and troughs. These structures,
though physically very different, have
similar development histories. Salt-related
overburden structures in the basin are considered
to result from thin-skinned, gravity-
driven deformation that was responsible
for triggering and controlling graben and
diapir growth and for the selective later inversion
of some diapirs. Additional structures
were created by bending and vertical
movements associated with extensionally
driven diapiric collapse. The development
of structures developed as a simple reaction
to the thin-skinned extension and subsequent
contraction of the overburden.
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