Bulletin of Canadian Petroleum Geology, Vol.44, No.2, 375-384, 1996
Triangle zone and thrust wedge geometries related to evaporitic horizons (southern Pyrenees)
The South Pyrenean fold-and-thrust belt triangle zone developed above Eocene to Oligocene foreland evaporitic levels, The triangle zone, Oligocene in age, dies eastwards and westwards where the thrust front becomes south-directed and emergent. The eastern and western terminations of the triangle zone coincide with the edges of the evaporitic basins. The frontal thrust wedge defines abrupt changes in trend related to the depositional orientation of evaporitic limits: the NE-SW Suria Anticline, the NW-SE Sanaiija Anticline and the E-W Barbastro-Balaguer Anticline. The thrust wedge is formed commonly at pinch-outs of salt without changes in structural level, although in some localities the thrust wedge developed above a thrust ramp geometry. Constrained timing and structural evolution of the foreland fold-and-thrust belt indicate the existence of northern and previous thrust wedges located at the Oliana and Puig-reig anticlines and the Sanaiija Anticline that have been abandoned as deformation progressed southward. Frontal thrust wedges were incorporated into the triangle zone which widened as new frontal thrust wedges developed forwards, at the southern edge of higher evaporitic levels. The exposed example is well understood because of continuous field exposures, syntectonic sedimentary relationships and new, good quality seismic profiles as well as subsurface control from oil and potash exploration wells.