Salt tectonics in the SW Alps (Italy–France): From rifting to the inversion of the European continental margin in a context of oblique convergence

• We study the structure and depositional evolution of the SW sector of the Alps.
• We stress the importance of salt-structures in the evolution of the study area.
• From rifting to collision, successive phases of basins formation are investigated.
• We discuss the study area in the frame of western Mediterranean geodynamics.

The SW Alps result from the inversion of the European continental margin during the oblique convergence between Europe and Adria since the Cretaceous. The orogenic deformation is controlled by two factors: the inherited sedimentary and structural record and the geodynamic interaction between the two plates. In this paper we present a stratigraphic and structural analysis of the external SW Alps (Ventimiglia–Menton area) in order to define the sedimentary and deformational geometries of the chain and to reconstruct the evolutionary history. The field-data highlight the preeminent role played by inherited salt-structures, which derive from the depositional history experienced by the European margin since the Mesozoic onwards. From Late Triassic to Jurassic, evaporites and carbonates deposited as a response to the Thetyan rifting. The following emplacement of the Cretaceous flysch and of the Eocene foreland basin succession was strongly influenced by the extensionally-triggered salt diapirism and by the interactions with deformations connected to the Pyrenees dynamics. The resulting geologic discontinuities (i.e. diapir-induced highs and basins, inherited normal and trasform faults) strongly influenced the successive Oligo-Miocene evolution of the belt in the study area. Observed changes in the thrusts and folds kinematics are considered as the results of rotation during their approaching to inherited highs. Furthermore, the overturning of thrusts and folds in the front of the diapiric flanks are associated with the progressively salt squeezing into the anticlines cores promoted by ongoing Alpine compression.Finally, the kinematic data from the study area show radical differences in the tectonic transport direction with respect to the rest of the SW Alps (NW- to W-ward in the Ventimiglia–Menton area, S- to SW-ward in Provence and Ligurian Alps). This difference is interpreted to be caused by the relative motions of crustal blocks dominated by transpressive tectonics in the frame of the Oligo-Miocene western Mediterranean geodynamics.