Numerical models of salt diapir formation by down-building: the role of sedimentation rate, viscosity contrast, initial amplitude and wavelength

Formation of salt diapirs has been described to be due to upbuilding (i.e. Rayleigh–Taylor like instability of salt diapirs piercing through a denser sedimentary overburden) or syndepositional down-building process (i.e. the top of the salt diapir remains at the surface all the time). Here we systematically analyse this second end-member mechanism by numerical modelling. Four parameters are varied: sedimentation rate vsed, salt viscosity ηsalt, amplitude δ of the initial perturbation of the sedimentation layer and the wavenumber k of this perturbation. The shape of the resulting salt diapirs strongly depends on these parameters. Small diapirs with subvertical side walls are found for small values of vsed and ηsalt or large values of δ, whereas taller diapirs with pronounced narrow stems build for larges values of vsed and ηsalt or small values of δ. Two domains are identified in the four-parameter space, which separates successful down-building models from non-successful models. By applying a simple channel flow law, the domain boundary can be described by the non-dimensional law , where is the sediment density scaled by the density contrast Δρ between sediment and salt, the wavelength is scaled by the salt layer thickness hsalt, and velocity is scaled by (, where ηsalt is the salt viscosity and g is the gravitational acceleration. From the numerical models, the constants C1 and C2 are determined as 0.0283 and 0.1171, respectively.