The Sivas Basin in the Central Anatolian Plateau (Turkey), which formed in the context of a foreland fold‐and‐thrust belt (FTB), exhibits a typical wall and basin (WAB) province characterized by symmetric minibasins separated by continuous steep‐flanked walls and diapirs. Extensive fieldwork including regional and detailed local mapping of the contacts and margins of minibasins, and interpretation of a set of 2‐D regional seismic lines, provide evidence for the development of a shallow evaporite level separating two generations of minibasins within the WAB province. Here beds of symmetric exposed minibasins along diapir flank are younger than minibasins observed over autochthonous evaporites. Laterally away from the WAB province, increase in wavelength of the tectonic structures suggests a deepening of the decollement level. We interpret that a shallower evaporite level developed in the form of an evaporite canopy, triggered by significant lateral shortening. The Upper Eocene‐Lower Oligocene autochthonous Tuzhisar evaporite level was remobilized by the northward migrating sedimentary load and the tilting of the southern basin margin during propagation of the foreland fold‐and‐thrust belt. Asymmetric and symmetric primary minibasins were overrun by an allochthonous sheet forming a canopy. A second generation of salt withdrawal minibasins subsided into the allochthonous salt sheet. The polygonal pattern of the WAB province influences the growing fold‐and‐thrust belt system during the late stage of the secondary minibasins development. The Sivas FTB basin is the result of the interaction between fold‐and‐thrust belt propagation, evaporite remobilization, and interaction between evaporite flow and sedimentation in the minibasins.

The Sivas Basin, located on the Central Anatolian Plateau in Turkey, is an elongate Oligo-Miocene basin that contains numerous salt-walled minibasins. Through field analysis, including stratigraphic section logging, facies analysis and geological mapping, a detailed tectono-stratigraphic study of the Emirhan mini-basin and its 2Á6 km thick sediment fill has been undertaken. Three main palaeoenvironments are recognizedplaya-lake, braided stream and lacustrineeach corresponds to a relatively long-lived depositional episode within a system that was dominated overall by the development of a distributive fluvial system. At local scale, this affects the geometry of the succession and influences facies distributions within preserved sequences. Sequences affected by wedge geometries are characterized by localized channelized sandstone bodies in the area of maximum subsidence and these pass laterally to floodplain mudstone towards the diaper; several internal unconformities are recognized. By contrast, sequences affected by hook geometries display narrow and steep drape-fold geometries with no evidence of lateral facies change and apparent conformity in the preserved succession. The sediment fill of the Emirhan mini-basin records the remobilization of diapir-derived detritus and the presence of evaporitic bodies interbedded within the mini-basin, implying the growth of salt walls expressed at the surface as palaeo-topographic highs. The mini-basin also records the signature of a regional change in stratigraphic assemblage, passing from playa-lake facies to large-scale highly amalgamated fluvial facies that represent progradation of the fluvial system. The initiation and evolution of this mini-basin involves a variety of local and regional controls. Local factors include: (i) salt withdrawal, which influenced the rate and style of subsidence and consequently temporal and spatial variation in the stratigraphic assemblage and the stratal response related to halokinesis; and (ii) salt inflation, which influenced the topographic expression of the diapirs and consequently the occurrence of diapir-derived detritus intercalated within the otherwise clastic-dominated succession.

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