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Salt Intrusions |
1 Forest Romania Corporation, Sos. Colentina 27 A, 72244 Bucharest, Romania
2 Prospectiuni S.A., 1 Coralilor Str., Bucharest 1, Romania
3 Vanco Energy, One Greenway Plaza, Houston, TX 77046, USA
The East Carpathians Bend area has a very complex structure characterized by the presence of nappes, their post-tectonic cover and salt diapirs. The salt forming the studied diapirs is Early Miocene (Burdigalian) in age. After its accumulation the salt was more or less continuously involved in alternating extensional and compressional stages that deformed it from its original tabular position to the present-day diapir. Five stages of salt deformation have been established: initial, pre-nappe emplacement, nappe emplacement, post-nappe emplacement and Wallachian. During all of these stages the salt was configured into different shapes: it formed a truncated cone during the initial stage, a mushroom head during the prenappe emplacement stage, and an increasingly more tapered shape with nappe emplacement and during the post-nappe emplacement stages. Finally, it was squeezed out and refashioned by strike-slip faulting during the Wallachian compressional stage of Pleistocene age.
