--> Salt Sheet Related Growth Fault Systems on Western Offshore Louisiana Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico, by R. Li and J. S. Watkins; #90986 (1994).

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Abstract: Salt Sheet Related Growth Fault Systems on Western Offshore Louisiana Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico

Rong Li, Joel S. Watkins

Large, seaward moving salt sheets cover much of the lower slope of the northern Gulf of Mexico. Salt sheet thinning, stretching movement disrupts overlying sediments and rafts them seaward. Overlying sediments respond to this movement and disruption by developing families of growth faults that accommodated lateral variations in movement.

There have been considerable speculations about the history of movement of these sheets. Two of the more important questions are the timing and history of their movement, and the relationship of salt movement and growth faulting.

We have discovered in the south additions of the East and West Cameron OCS areas a salt sheet that appears to have been emplaced in the late Miocene or Pliocene. It is about 30 miles long in the downdip direction, 50 miles wide, spreads across most of the West and East Cameron South Additions. Two growth fault families have developed in sediments overlying the salt tongue and now root in the salt. These fault families strike nearly east-west. They are located within the regions, 27° 50^primeN lat., and 28° 20^primeN lat. to 28° 30^primeN lat., respectively.

Study reveals that there exists a quantitative relationship between salt lateral emplacement distance and fault growth length. Within the zone where overlapping synthetic faults pass each other, the displacement transfers smoothly from one major fault to another.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90986©1994 AAPG Annual Convention, Denver, Colorado, June 12-15, 1994