Autogenic initiation of basin-scale salt tectonics
Abstract
Salt structures typically form due to the post-depositional flow of salt triggered and maintained by allogenic drivers such as differential loading, gravity gliding, or shortening. Using ~26,000 km² of 3-D seismic reflection data and 34 wells from the Southern North Sea, we propose that the earliest regional deformation of the Southern Permian Basin salt giant (Zechstein Supergroup) was instead autogenic, being initiated by intra-salt diagenetic processes. The synclines of the earliest salt-cored folds overlie ridges of intrasalt gypsum that converted to anhydrite at the end of the Permian. Triassic onlap and truncation show that these folds formed immediately after salt deposition, long before regional Paleogene–Neogene shortening, and that the curvilinear, variably oriented hinges parallel neither the sub-salt fault network nor the dip of the detachment, as allogenic mechanisms would predict. Numerical experiments show that the density contrast created by intrasalt diagenesis may have caused the gypsum ridges to founder into the underlying halite, drawing down the depositional surface, forming depressions ultimately filled by Triassic sediment. A significant component of early-stage salt tectonics in the Southern Permian Basin may therefore be autogenic in origin, with the distribution of the much younger shortening structures being dictated by diagenetic reactions within the evaporite rather than by regional, plate-driven stresses. Regional tectonism subsequently amplified these structures, which nonetheless retain a record of key control on their distribution.
Related
- Late-glacial marker beds of various origins - megaturbidite, sapropel, tephra - exhibit lateral variability enhanced by tectonics in the Western Ionian Basin (central Mediterranean)
- Constraining the early stage of the post-orogenic extensional tectonics in central Italy: New evidence from a long sediment core from the tectonically active L’Aquila Basin
- Multi‑temporal investigation of brine hydrogeochemical evolution under sustained potash mining in the Qarhan Salt Lake, Qaidam Basin, China
- Basin-scale evaluation of the Noah-MP land surface model for runoff and snow generation in the Missouri River Basin: insights and recommendations for parameterization scheme selection
- Management implications from multi-scale linkages between landscape ecological risk and habitat quality in the Qinghai Lake Basin
BibTeX
@misc{moneron2026autogenic,
title = {{Autogenic initiation of basin-scale salt tectonics}},
author = {Jimmy Moneron and Giridas Maiti and Mads Huuse and Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson and Alexandre Lethiers and Nevena Andrić-Tomašević},
howpublished = {EarthArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31223/x5fr5x},
url = {https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15706/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Autogenic initiation of basin-scale salt tectonics
AU - Jimmy Moneron
AU - Giridas Maiti
AU - Mads Huuse
AU - Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson
AU - Alexandre Lethiers
AU - Nevena Andrić-Tomašević
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/23
PB - EarthArXiv
DO - 10.31223/x5fr5x
UR - https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/15706/
AB - Salt structures typically form due to the post-depositional flow of salt triggered and maintained by allogenic drivers such as differential loading, gravity gliding, or shortening. Using ~26,000 km² of 3-D seismic reflection data and 34 wells from the Southern North Sea, we propose that the earliest regional deformation of the Southern Permian Basin salt giant (Zechstein Supergroup) was instead autogenic, being initiated by intra-salt diagenetic processes. The synclines of the earliest salt-cored folds overlie ridges of intrasalt gypsum that converted to anhydrite at the end of the Permian. Triassic onlap and truncation show that these folds formed immediately after salt deposition, long before regional Paleogene–Neogene shortening, and that the curvilinear, variably oriented hinges parallel neither the sub-salt fault network nor the dip of the detachment, as allogenic mechanisms would predict. Numerical experiments show that the density contrast created by intrasalt diagenesis may have caused the gypsum ridges to founder into the underlying halite, drawing down the depositional surface, forming depressions ultimately filled by Triassic sediment. A significant component of early-stage salt tectonics in the Southern Permian Basin may therefore be autogenic in origin, with the distribution of the much younger shortening structures being dictated by diagenetic reactions within the evaporite rather than by regional, plate-driven stresses. Regional tectonism subsequently amplified these structures, which nonetheless retain a record of key control on their distribution.
ER -