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Timing of Onset
and Destruction of the
Vergés, Jaume1, Stephane Homke1, Miguel Garces2, Ridvan Karpuz3, Ian Sharp4, Josep Serra-Kiel2, Hadi Emami1, Mohammad Goodarzi5 (1) Institute of Earth Sciences, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain (2) University of Barcelona, Spain (3) Norsk Hydro Zagros Petroleum, Tehran, Iran (4) Norsk Hydro Research Centre, Bergen, Norway, (5) National Iranian Oil Company, Tehran, Iran
The passage from
passive margin to foreland in the Zagros Fold Belt as well as the onset of foreland
deformation by folding and thrusting is investigated by means of AFTA and magnetosptratigraphy
together with biostratigraphy in the Push-e Kush Arc in 
geometry
progressively thickening towards the NE suggest
that deposition filled up a flexural basin formed as a response of thrust
sheets emplacement. Results based on preliminary magnetostratigraphic analyses
show a Maastrichtian age for Amiran deposits infilling this early foreland
basin formed as a consequence of early-middle Late Cretaceous tectonic
emplacement of ophiolites (~90 Ma based on detrital AFTA). Post-Asmari Fm. foreland
basin shows gentle thickening towards the Zagros hinterland in both Lurestan
and Khuzestan provinces (Push-e Kush Arc and Dezful Embayment). Onset of Zagros
foreland destruction started during deposition of fluvial Agha Jari Fm. based
on reliable magnetostratigraphic sections in the front of the Zagros Fold
Belt. Initiation of folding in the Pushe Kush Arc is dated at 8.1-7.2 Ma. The
Bakhtyari Fm. deposited conformably in growth synclines and above an angular
unconformity elsewhere and thus constraining the end of major deformation in
this region near the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary.