The Southern Atlas Front in Tunisia and its foreland basin: Structural style and regional-scale deformation

Abstract

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Interconnection salt diapir–allochthonous salt sheet in northern Tunisia: The Lansarine–Baoula case study

“…This phase is mainly characterized by NWtrending fault systems and associated sub-basins. This change from lower Cretaceous to Aptian-Albian periods, is interpreted in Tunisia as the translation from the Jurassic E-W (present-coordinates) dominant shape to Early Cretaceous NW-SE shape, which is concordant with the general E-W transform faults of the Atlantic that translate to NW-SE during the Alpine Tethys faults (Rosenbaum et al, 2002;Frizon de Lamotte et al, 2013;Masrouhi et al, 2019). The tectonic regime changes during the late Cretaceous post-Rift period.…”

“…This evolution from E-W (present-coordinates) to NW-SE shape is wellmatched to E-W transform faults of the Atlantic that change to NW-SE in the Alpine Tethys (e.g. Rosenbaum et al, 2002;Masrouhi et al, 2019). During the lower Cretaceous, a paleogeographic differentiation was established with a continental platform in the south and center and a deep domain in the north.…”

“…All authors who worked in this region agree that this event is the major compressional tectonic event deforming the Atlassic domain of Tunisia (e.g. Gharbi et al, 2014;Bahrouni et al, 2014;Soumaya et al, 2015;Masrouhi et al, 2019). The main regional compression direction was identified by several studies as NW-trending during Miocene-Pliocene and N-Trending during the Late Pliocene-Quaternary (e.g.…”

“…The structural style of this belt has recently been identified as the result of the inversion of Mesozoic inherited structures of the earlier passive margin basins and/or sub-basins along the south Tethyan margin (e.g. Jaillard et al, 2017;Naji et al, 2018a;Masrouhi et al, 2019).…”

Syn-Collision Folding and Multi-Layers Detachment in the Molassic Basin, Northeastern Tunisia

“…At the Atlassic area of North African margin, the detachment is described in the Triassic evaporitic series [4,19,33]. The sedimentary cover detachment was revealed to be contemporary with the different stages of the African-Eurasian convergence that led to the Alpine chain and the Atlassic chain formation [3,15,40] during the Mesozoic-Cenozoic age.…”