Abstract:
The Arabian Platform containing the Zagros Mountain
Ranges (ZMR) is located to the Northeast of the Arabian Shield. There
are nearly 200 salt domes on the Arabian Platform. In the ZMR, structural
anomalies are frequently associated with similar facies distribution patterns.
In the eastern portion of the region, emergent salt plugs of Infra-Cambrian
age exhibit the same alignment patterns. Such trends bear no apparent
genetic relationship to the Tertiary folding responsible for the present
Zagros fold belt but rather indicate their affinity with linear basement
features which are readily observable on Landsat imagery and aerial photographs.
Bending of anticlines in the competent cover rock, combined with minor
strike-slip faults and horizontal displacements of parts of folded structures,
strongly point to the presence of these basement faults. The salt plugs,
which have pierced cover rocks of up to 10000 m thick, are distributed
on the Arabian Platform along regional basement faults. The area of diapir
outcrops is bounded by the Oman Line to the East and by the Kazerun Fault
to the West. Pieces of the basement have been brought up to the surface
on some of the salt domes. The fragments were transported by rotational
ascent of the Hormuz Salt Formation to the present and former land surfaces.
The recognition of features related to basement tectonic and realization
of their implication in the control and modification of geological processes
in an important adjunct to the search for hydrocarbon accumulations in
this region. To our best knowledge, data of basement faults in the study
area is scarce. Therefore, this study was carried out to determine basement
faults and their relation to salt dome distribution. Considering the fold
axis bending, the trend of the salt plugs and also the distribution of
epicenters of the last century, numerous new basement faults are introduced
in this study.
J. Rahnama Rad, R. Derakhshani, G. Farhoudi and H. Ghorbani, 2008. Basement Faults and Salt Plug Emplacement in the Arabian Platform in Southern Iran. Journal of Applied Sciences, 8: 3235-3241.
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