Analogue experiments of salt flow and pillow growth due to basement faulting and differential loading

Warsitzka, M.; Kley, J.; Kukowski, N.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/se-6-9-2015

Articles | Volume 6, issue 1

Solid Earth, 6, 9–31, 2015

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-6-9-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Solid Earth, 6, 9–31, 2015

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-6-9-2015

© Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 6, issue 1

Research article 06 Jan 2015

Research article | 06 Jan 2015

Analogue experiments of salt flow and pillow growth due to basement faulting and differential loading

M. Warsitzka et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Jan 2015)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 17 Jul 2014)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC C741: 'Review of Christopher J. Talbot', Anonymous Referee #1, 31 Jul 2014
- AC C758: 'Reply to RC C741: 'Review of Christopher J. Talbot'', Michael Warsitzka, 08 Aug 2014
RC C982: 'paper review - summary', Piotr Krzywiec, 21 Sep 2014
- AC C1087: 'reply to Piotr Krzywiec's review', Michael Warsitzka, 06 Oct 2014

Short summary

This paper summarizes the results of scaled analogue experiments examining the kinematics of salt flow and the formation of salt pillows due to basement faulting and subsequent sedimentation. Our experimental results reveal that salt above a basement normal fault can flow downward or upward depending on the direction of the pressure gradient within the salt layer. Due to upward flow driven by differential loading, salt pillows can form above the higher basement block.