Self-similarity of intrasalt thrust faults: Lessons from offshore Levant Basin and the Dead Sea

Abstract

The Levant Basin in the eastern Mediterranean Sea developed during rifting episodes occurring from Permian to the Early Jurassic (Netzeband et al. 2006; Gardosh et al. 2010), and has been a deep-water basin with a passive continental margin at least since the Cretaceous (Gardosh et al. 2008). Thick sequences of halite and interbedded shales (stringers) were deposited during the infamous Messinian Salinity Crisis (5.96-5.33 Ma). Salt-rich passive continental margins facilitate complex deformation of both the mobile salt and the surrounding rock mass (Allen et al. 2016, Cartwright et al. 2012). The weak salt will mobilize as a response to differential loading (gravity spreading) or tilting of the basin (gravity gliding), and intricate strains within the package may be observed due to the difference in AI between the halite and the stringers. This study compares large-scaled intrasalt thrust systems interpreted on high quality 3D seismic data from offshore Israel (Kartveit et al. under review) with recently published outcrop analogies in gravity-driven mass transport systems near the Dead Sea (Alsop et al. 2017a, Alsop et al. 2017b) in order to evaluate the multi-phase deformation history in the basin.