Contractional deformation in the Kuqa fold-and-thrust belt (southern foreland of the Tian Shan Mountains, NW China) is recorded by well-preserved syntectonic continental sequences. In addition, its structural evolution was strongly controlled by synorogenic salt (Eocene in age) and presalt décollements with varying spatial distribution. We present a balanced and sequentially restored cross section across the central part of this fold-and-thrust belt that provides a new interpretation of the structure beneath the evaporites, in which Paleozoic and Mesozoic strata are deformed by a thrust stack involving (i) a thin-skinned thrust system detached on Triassic-Jurassic coal units and (ii) an ensemble of south-directed basement thrusts. The latter formed from the inversion of Mesozoic extensional faults such as those preserved both in the Tarim foreland basin and beneath the frontal part of the Kuqa fold-and-thrust belt. The constructed section shows a total shortening of 35 km from the Late Cretaceous to the present. The restoration depicts a three-stage evolution for the Kuqa fold-and-thrust belt: (i) minor Mesozoic extension, (ii) an early compressional stage (Late Cretaceous to early Miocene) with low shortening and syntectonic sedimentary rates, and (iii) a later compressional stage (late Pliocene-Pleistocene) characterized by a greater and progressively increasing shortening rate and rapid deposition. Our results are discussed in light of previous analogue and numerical modeling studies and demonstrate the control exerted by the interplay between syntectonic sedimentation, the inversion of inherited basement structures, and the nature and extent of Triassic/Jurassic and Eocene décollements.

The Chaînons Béarnais (CB, North Pyrenean Zone) resulted from the Cenozoic contractional reactivation of the salt tectonics‐bearing, hyperextended margin that initiated at the Europe‐Iberia transition during the Early Cretaceous. In this tectonic scenario, assessing the relative contribution of extension and contraction to the present‐day structure is crucial to reconstruct the hyperextended margin geometry and to quantify the subsequent shortening. This study undertakes this issue by defining the relationship between folding and two bedding‐independent references: peak temperature isotherms and paleomagnetic data. Isotherms were reconstructed from 76 new measurements of Raman spectroscopy on carbonaceous materials (RSCM) and indicate temperatures at the time of peak metamorphism in the CB (110–85 Ma, end of extension). They are shallowly to moderately northwards dipping and cut across most of the folds deforming the Mesozoic units. Paleomagnetic data from 29 sites evidence a widespread remagnetization carried by pyrrhotite that was probably blocked during the early Paleogene (before the onset of continental collision) and postdated folding in the CB. Abnormal inclinations in this remagnetization suggest syn‐collision tilts up to 60° to the north in the back limb of the Axial Zone. Based on the presented data set, we propose that the folding of the cover above the evaporitic décollement was almost fully completed by the end of the Cretaceous extension, with ~85–100% of the dip of fold limbs being acquired before the remagnetization time. Cenozoic contraction reactivated the extensional faults in the shallow basement as top‐to‐the‐S thrusts, leading to the passive transport and northwards tilting of the folded cover.