3D modeling of salt dome structures – a case study in the Pricaspian Basin (Central Asia)

The Pricaspian Basin represents an approximately 600 km wide (east-west) structure at the northern edge of the Caspian Sea. Isolated from the Paleo-Tethys by carbonate massives, this structure was filled with up to 4.5 km thick Permian (Kungurian and Roadian (Kazanian)) evaporite rocks and covered mainly by clastic sediments in post-Roadian times. From the late Permian and intensifying in the Triassic, halokinesis led to the rise of salt diapirs, which highly deformed the salt successions. This diapirism continued in a later movement phase between the Jurassic and the Neogene resulting in more than 1.500 salt dome structures known in the Pricaspian Basin. These salt dome structures are of economic interest, e.g. for gas, oil, potash, and borate.

With the help of seismic investigations, as well as lithological and chemical analyses from drilling results, a 3D model of a potash deposit was created. This 3D model represents a case study of a complex tectonic and halokinetic genesis within a salt diapir of the Pricaspian Basin.