Journal of Sedimentary Research, 2021, v. 91, 34–65 Research Article DOI: 10.2110/jsr.2020.047 INTERACTIONS BETWEEN DEEP-WATER GRAVITY FLOWS AND ACTIVE SALT TECTONICS ZOE¨ A. CUMBERPATCH,1 IAN A. KANE,1 EUAN L. SOUTTER,1 DAVID M. HODGSON,2 CHRISTOPHER A-L. JACKSON,*3 BEN A. 4 5 KILHAMS, AND YOHANN POPRAWSKI 1SedRESQ, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, U.K. 2The Stratigraphy Group, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, U.K. 3Basins Research Group (BRG), Department of Earth Science & Engineering, Imperial College, London SW7 2BP, U.K. 4Shell Upstream International, York Road, London SE1 7LZ, U.K. 5LPG-BIAF UMR-CNRS 6112, UNIV Angers, CNRS, UFR Sciences, 2 bd Lavoisier 49045, Angers CEDEX 01, France e-mail:
[email protected] ABSTRACT: Behavior of sediment gravity flows can be influenced by seafloor topography associated with salt structures; this can modify the depositional architecture of deep-water sedimentary systems. Typically, salt-influenced deep-water successions are poorly imaged in seismic reflection data, and exhumed systems are rare, hence the detailed sedimentology and stratigraphic architecture of these systems remains poorly understood. The exhumed Triassic (Keuper) Bakio and Guernica salt bodies in the Basque–Cantabrian Basin, Spain, were active during deep-water sedimentation. The salt diapirs grew reactively, then passively, during the Aptian–Albian, and are flanked by deep-water carbonate (Aptian–earliest Albian Urgonian Group) and siliciclastic (middle Albian– Cenomanian Black Flysch Group) successions. The study compares the depositional systems in two salt-influenced minibasins, confined (Sollube basin) and partially confined (Jata basin) by actively growing salt diapirs, comparable to salt-influenced minibasins in the subsurface.