Style and timing of salt tectonics in the Dniepr-Donets Basin (Ukraine) from seismic data

The Ukrainian Dniepr-Donets Basin (DDB) is a Late Palaeozoic intracratonic rift basin, with<br>sedimentary thicknesses up to 19 km, displaying the effects of salt tectonics during its entire history of<br>formation, from Late Devonian rifting to the Tertiary. Hundreds of concordant and discordant salt structures<br>formed during this time. It is demonstrated that the variety of styles of salt structure formation in the DDB<br>provide important constraints on understanding the triggering and driving mechanisms of salt kinematics in<br>sedimentary basins in general. Specifically, syn- and post-rift regional extensional and compressional<br>tectonic events were very important mechanisms involved in the initiation of salt movements in the DDB.<br>Other geological processes were significant factors in the development of a variety of salt geometries once<br>salt flow had been triggered by tectonic disturbance of the unstable equilibrium between salt layers and their<br>overburden.