Salt Diapirism in Kalut Basin (Northeastern Ardakan)

Kalut basin (northeastern Ardakan, central Iran) has been formed during Laramian orogeny in the early Paleocene. Because of its moving basement a great thickness of Tertiary sediments (more than 3800 meters in the center of the basin) were deposit. The deposits show a continental facies and only some beds of middle Eocene show a shallow marine environment. This folded basin is characterized by some open synclines with terrigenous core (in Miocene age) and close to tight anticlines with salt core (in lower Eocene age). In the central kalut basin, salt bodies missing link (intrusive salt plugs) and with same trend of b-axis of anticlines and/or with the same strike of pre-existing fault planes. Toward west and east margins of the basin, where the thickness of salt stratum decrease, they are replaced by salt domes (without any intrusion, in the normal sequences) gradually. In the westernmost of the basin any rising salt bodies has disappeared and low relief structures have remained. A remarkable feature is similarity of trends of diapiric anticlines and low relief structures and it seems that some of the diapirs occur in place of pre-existing salt high relief structures.Certainly the rise of the salt bodies here depends on primary relief of these structures.