Review article Salt tectonics in pull-apart basins with application to the Dead Sea Basin J. Smit a,b,1 , J.-P. Brun b, ⁎ , X. Fort c , S. Cloetingh a , Z. Ben-Avraham d a Netherland Research Center for Integrated Solid Earth Sciences, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands b Géosciences Rennes, Université de Rennes1, Campus de Beaulieu, Bât. 15, 35042 Rennes cedex, France c G.O. Logical Consulting, 12 Allée des Iles Chausey, 35700 Rennes cedex, France d Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel Received 7 March 2007; received in revised form 28 November 2007; accepted 5 December 2007 Available online 14 December 2007 Abstract The Dead Sea Basin displays a broad range of salt-related structures that developed in a sinistral strike-slip tectonic environment: en échelon salt ridges, large salt diapirs, transverse oblique normal faults, salt walls and rollovers. Laboratory experiments are used to investigate the mechanics of salt tectonics in pull-apart systems. The results show that in an elongated pull-apart basin the basin fill, although decoupled from the underlying basement by a salt layer, remains frictionally coupled to the boundary. The basin fill, therefore, undergoes a strike-slip shear couple that simultaneously generates en échelon fold trains and oblique normal faults, trending mutually perpendicular. According to the orientation of basin boundaries, sedimentary cover deformation can be dominantly contractional or extensional, at the extremities of pull-apart basins forming either folds and thrusts or normal faults, respectively. These guidelines, applied to the analysis of the Dead Sea Basin, show that the various salt-related structures form a coherent set in the frame of a sinistral strike-slip shearing deformation of the sedimentary basin fill. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Salt tectonics; Pull-apart basins; Laboratory experiments; Dead Sea Basin Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................... 2 2. The Dead Sea pull-apart basin ...................................................... 2 2.1. Tectonic framework ........................................................ 2 2.2. Stratigraphy ............................................................ 2 2.3. Fault pattern ........................................................... 4 3. Salt structures in the Dead Sea Basin .................................................. 6 3.1. Salt diapirs ............................................................ 6 3.2. Salt walls ............................................................. 6 3.3. En échelon salt ridges ....................................................... 6 3.4. Rollovers ............................................................. 7 4. Experimental procedure ......................................................... 7 4.1. Experimental results ........................................................ 8 4.1.1. Model 1: narrow basin with high length/width ratio and relatively thick ‘salt’ layer .................. 9 4.1.2. Model 2: narrow basin with low length/width ratio ................................... 9 4.1.3. Model 3: large basin .................................................. 10 Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Tectonophysics 449 (2008) 1 – 16 www.elsevier.com/locate/tecto ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: Jean-Pierre.Brun@univ-rennes.1.fr (J.-P. Brun). 1 Presently at ETH-Zentrum, Strukturgeologie, Leonhardstrasse, 19 /LEB, CH-8092 Zürich, Switzerland. Tel.: +41 44 632 2317; fax: +41 44 632 1030. 0040-1951/$ - see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2007.12.004