Evaporite-influenced rift basins and salt tectonics in the southeastern Norwegian Barents Sea

Abstract

The doctoral thesis is a collection of four published journal papers, which investigate the influence of the basement inheritance on the pre-salt basin configuration and its effects on the accumulation of the layered evaporite sequence, salt tectonics and post-salt sedimentation in evaporite-influenced rift basins. The thesis has shown that rheological properties, locations, orientation and interaction of inherited structures created zones of weakness that influenced the development of complex pre-salt basin architecture along with subsequent regional extensional phases. Consequently, the syn-rift to post-rift processes within discrete accommodation space of varying depth and depositional paleo-environment, have influenced the thickness and facies (mobile to non-mobile) of the layered evaporite sequence. The study highlights that the regional extension and prograding sediment influx direction, the sediment transport velocity and the sediment thickness influenced the dynamics of the early to late passive diapirism, the salt expulsion and the depletion, together with the layered evaporite thickness and facies that were affected by the pre-salt rift architecture. The salt structures and evaporite-cored domes were rejuvenated due to far-field contractional stresses and eventually uplift eroded the successions over their crests.