EGU21-9640, updated on 27 Jul 2022
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9640
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Late Miocene to present-day tectonostratigraphy of the northern central Algerian Basin: Evidence of a contractional salt system from reprocessed seismic data

Simon Blondel1,2, Angelo Camerlenghi1, Anna Del Ben2, and Massimo Bellucci2,3
Simon Blondel et al.
  • 1National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics, Sgonico, Italy
  • 2University of Trieste, Dipartimento di Matematica e Geoscienze, Trieste, Italy
  • 3IFREMER, Géosciences Marines, Plouzané, France

This study presents the interpretation of reprocessed seismic data covering the southwestern Balearic promontory and the central Algerian basin. The new depth processing of 2D seismic lines dataset allows for the first time a good resolution on salt structures in the deep basin. Most of the salt structures result from active diapirism. In the deep basin, sedimentary loads and regional shortening are proposed to be the dominant driving forces, showing an overall contractional salt system. The north Algerian margin tectonic reactivation could have provoked a regional shortening of the salt structures and overburden. Identified unconformities suggest that this process probably started shortly after salt deposition and is still active nowadays. It is expressed by salt sheets, pinched diapirs and a décollement level. The African convergence and the narrowness of the western Algerian basin could be the explanation of an overall greater salt deformation intensity compared to the eastern Algerian basin. This demonstrates how in tectonic and sedimentary components appear to be dominant in salt deformation in the central Algerian basin compared to gravitational gliding, only localized in the proximal parts of the margin.

How to cite: Blondel, S., Camerlenghi, A., Del Ben, A., and Bellucci, M.: Late Miocene to present-day tectonostratigraphy of the northern central Algerian Basin: Evidence of a contractional salt system from reprocessed seismic data, EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-9640, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9640, 2021.

This abstract will not be presented.