Salt tectonics in two convergent-margin basins of the Cyprus arc, Northeastern Mediterranean

The halokinetic structures in the Cilicia and Latakia Basins display a remarkable resemblance to detached and linked systems of extensional and contractional fault fans documented in classical salt provinces on passive margins. The study area also resembles scaled experiments which document synchronous development of extensional and contractional fault systems detached in a ductile substrate. However, a number of differences also exist, which may arise from several factors, including the nature of ductility contrast between the ductile portion of the evaporite layer and the supra-salt succession, the thickness ratio of overburden to evaporite unit, and the rate of progradation and the nature of sediment distribution during the evolution of the delta complex. The special aspect of these associations of linked gravity-driven extensional and contractional salt structures is that they are developed as a self-contained system wholly situated within a Plio-Quaternary transtensional basin.