Salt redistribution during extension and inversion inferred from 3D backstripping

A 3D backstripping approach considering salt flow as a consequence of spatially changing overburden load distribution, isostatic rebound and sedimentary compaction for each backstripping step is used to reconstruct the subsidence history in the Northeast German Basin. The method allows to determine basin subsidence and the salt-related deformation during Late Cretaceous–Early Cenozoic inversion and during Late Triassic–Jurassic extension. In the Northeast German Basin, the deformation is thin-skinned in the basinal part, but thick-skinned at the basin margins. The salt cover is deformed due to Late Triassic–Jurassic extension and Late Cretaceous–Early Cenozoic inversion whereas the salt basement remained largely stable in the basin area. In contrast, the basin margins suffered strong deformation especially during Late Cretaceous–Early Cenozoic inversion. As a main question, we address the role of salt during the thin-skinned extension and inversion of the basin. In our modelling approach, we assume that the salt behaves like a viscous fluid on the geological time-scale, that salt and overburden are in hydrostatical near-equilibrium at all times, and that the volume of salt is constant. Because the basement of the salt is not deformed due to decoupling in the basin area, we consider the base of the salt as a reference surface, where the load pressure must be equilibrated. Our results indicate that major salt movements took place during Late Triassic to Jurassic E–W directed extension and during Late Cretaceous–Early Cenozoic NNE–SSW directed compression. Moreover, the study outcome suggests that horizontal strain propagation in the salt cover could have triggered passive salt movements which balanced the cover deformation by viscous flow. In the Late Triassic, strain transfer from the large graben systems in West Central Europe to the east could have caused the subsidence of the Rheinsberg Trough above the salt layer. In this context, the effective regional stress did not exceed the yield strength of the basement below the Rheinsberg Trough, but was high enough to provoke deformation of the viscous salt layer and its cover. During the Late Cretaceous–Early Cenozoic phase of inversion, horizontal strain propagation from the southern basin margin into the basin can explain the intensive thin-skinned compressive deformation of the salt cover in the basin. The thick-skinned compressive deformation along the southern basin margin may have propagated into the salt cover of the basin where the resulting folding again was balanced by viscous salt flow into the anticlines of folds. The huge vertical offset of the pre-Zechstein basement along the southern basin margin and the amount of shortening in the folded salt cover of the basin indicate that the tectonic forces responsible for this inversion event have been of a considerable magnitude.