Timing and origin of the South Atlantic pre-salt sag basins and their capping evaporites

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Abstract

Abstract Continental extension between West Africa and Brazil was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the development of the pre-salt sag basins and the evaporites of the South Atlantic salt basin. Subsidence mechanisms to explain these basins and their capping evaporites include: (1) deposition on Barremian-aged ocean crust; (2) rift propagation from east to west across the West African margin such that post-rift subsidence commenced in the east while rifting was still occurring to the west; and (3) depth-dependent lithospheric extension. Predicted thermal subsidence of oceanic crust or rifted lithosphere is inadequate to generate sufficient accommodation for the evaporites. Within the Santos Basin, extensional faulting within the pre-salt sag basin occurs up to the base of the evaporites; extension clearly continued to the late Aptian. Time-equivalent onshore and offshore pre-salt sections across the West African margin, and the inability to generate sufficient subsidence if the sections are considered to be post-rift, disqualifies east to west rift propagation as a mechanism for the observed pre-salt basins and evaporites. Barremian–Aptian depth-dependent extension best explains the general rift and post-rift development of the West African and Brazilian margins and the paucity of syn-rift faulting, the strain balance being achieved by the lateral emplacement of lower crust and continental mantle out from under the adjacent continental lithosphere. Regional exposure and truncation of the top pre-salt sag section attests to a climate-induced lake level drawdown during the mid Aptian, and offers a simple mechanism to generate the shallow water environments for evaporite precipitation across the West African–Brazilian rift system. In the subsequent marine transgression the Gabon and Angolan salts and the evaporites within the conjugate Camamu-Almada, Jequitinhonha and Cumuruxatiba basins were deposited. Santos and Campos basin evaporites are younger. The barrier to southern Atlantic marine incursions and the possible delay in Santos and Campos evaporite deposition relates to the magmatic constructions of a proto-Walvis Ridge and the long-lived anomalous topography of the southeastern Brazilian highlands; Campos and Santos basin extension was necessarily superimposed on a broad, high-relief plateau.

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