Abstract: Rollover is the folding of the hanging-wall sedimentary record in response to slip on listric normal faults, and is a common feature of sediment-rich, gravity-driven tectonic provinces. Rollovers have been extensively studied by means of geometrical reconstruction, and numerical and analogue modelling. However, the detailed interaction between the kinematics of bounding listric normal faults and their hanging-wall deformation is not yet fully understood. In this study, we use 3D seismic-reflection data from the Forcados-Yokri area, western Niger Delta, Nigeria, to study the lateral linkage and landwards backstepping history of an array of listric normal faults, particularly focusing on their influence on the development and evolution of hanging-wall rollovers. Five individual, partly overlapping rollover structures have been studied with respect to their relative initiation and decay time, their spatial distribution, and their relationship to the tectonic history of their respective bounding faults. We demonstrate that the studied rollovers are highly dependent on the development of their bounding faults in terms of initiation time, lateral linkage, internal structural development and decay. Fault–rollover interaction is dynamic and changes through time depending on the temporal evolution of listric faults. Four genetic types of fault–rollover interaction were identified in this study: (1) the rotation of a rollover–crestal-collapse system, controlled by a changing lateral bounding-fault orientation during fault growth; (2) a stepwise shift of rollover–crestal-collapse systems associated with rollover abandonment, controlled by the initiation of a new fault in the footwall of an older structure; (3) a gradual shift of successive rollovers controlled by branching main faults; and (4) a general landwards and upwards migration of crestal-collapse faults within a rollover above stationary listric main faults.

Abstract: Salt is mechanically weaker than other sedimentary rocks in rift basins. It commonly acts as a strain localizer, and decouples supra- and sub-salt deformation. In the rift basins discussed in this paper, sub-salt faults commonly form wide and deep ramp synclines controlled by the thickness and strength of the overlying salt section, as well as by the shapes of the extensional faults, and the magnitudes and slip rates along the faults. Upon inversion of these rift basins, the inherited extensional architectures, and particularly the continuity of the salt section, significantly controls the later contractional deformation. This paper utilizes scaled sandbox models to analyse the interplay between sub-salt structures and supra-salt units during both extension and inversion. Series 1 experiments involved baseline models run using isotropic sand packs for simple and ramp-flat listric faults, as well as for simple planar and kinked planar faults. Series 2 experiments involved the same fault geometries but also included a pre-extension polymer layer to simulate salt in the stratigraphy. In these experiments, the polymer layer decoupled the extensional and contractional strains, and inhibited the upwards propagation of sub-polymer faults. In all Series 2 experiments, the extension produced a synclinal hanging-wall basin above the polymer layer as a result of polymer migration during the deformation. During inversion, the supra-polymer synclinal basin was uplifted, folded and detached above the polymer layer. Changes in thickness of the polymer layer during the inversion produced primary welds and these permitted the sub-polymer deformation to propagate upwards into the supra-salt layers. The experimental results are compared with examples from the Parentis Basin (Bay of Biscay), the Broad Fourteens Basin (southern North Sea), the Feda Graben (central North Sea) and the Cameros Basin (Iberian Range, Spain).

The Mineral, Virginia (USA), earthquake of 23 August 2011 occurred at 6–8 km depth within the allochthonous terranes of the Appalachian Piedmont Province, rupturing an ~N36°E striking reverse fault dipping ~50° southeast. This study used the Interstate Highway 64 seismic reflection profile acquired ~6 km southwest of the hypocenter to examine the structural setting of the earthquake. The profile shows that the 2011 earthquake and its aftershocks are almost entirely within the early Paleozoic Chopawamsic volcanic arc terrane, which is bounded by listric thrust faults dipping 30°–40° southeast that sole out into an ~2-km-thick, strongly reflective zone at 7–12 km depth. Reflectors above and below the southward projection of the 2011 earthquake focal plane do not show evidence for large displacement, and the updip projection of the fault plane does not match either the location or trend of a previously mapped fault or lithologic boundary. The 2011 earthquake thus does not appear to be a simple reactivation of a known Paleozoic thrust fault or a major Mesozoic rift basin-boundary fault. The fault that ruptured appears to be a new fault, a fault with only minor displacement, or to not extend the ~3 km from the aftershock zone to the seismic profile. Although the Paleozoic structures appear to influence the general distribution of seismicity in the area, Central Virginia seismic zone earthquakes have yet to be tied directly to specific fault systems mapped at the surface or imaged on seismic profiles.