Structural inversion of the Pomeranian and Kuiavian segments of the Mid-Polish Trough -- lateral variations in timing and structural style

Abstract

Seven high-quality reflection-seismic lines, calibrated by wells, were interpreted in an effort to assess the timing of inversion and the structural configuration of the Pomeranian and Kuiavian segments of the Mid-Polish Trough. Seismostratigraphic analyses of the Upper Cretaceous successions imaged by these seismic lines in the NE and SW marginal troughs of the Mid-Polish Swell document important along-strike stratigraphic and structural changes. Thickness variations of the Upper Cretaceous series, combined with the development of erosional unconformities and associated tectonic deformations indicate that inversion movements commenced during the late Turonian and intermittently persisted into the Maastrichtian and Paleocene. Earliest inversion movements were focused on the margins of the Mid-Polish Trough where Mesozoic sequences are decoupled from the sub-Zechstein series by Zechstein salts. Whereas the NE margin of the Mid-Polish Trough is devoid of compressionally reactivated salt structures, its SW margin is characterized by strong inversion-related salt tectonics. Progressive inversion of the axial parts of the Mid-Polish Trough was accompanied by uplift of its pre-Zechstein floor to and above the level of flanking, non-inverted areas, and by deep truncation of Mesozoic series across the culmination of the evolving Mid-Polish Swell. Inversion movements ceased towards the end of the Paleocene, as evidenced by the burial of the Mid-Polish Swell beneath essentially flat lying Eocene and younger series. Turonian-Paleocene inversion of the Mid-Polish Trough is coeval with the inversion of the Bohemian Massif, the North German Basin and the Sorgenfrei-Tornquist Zone. Inversion of the Mid-Polish Trough is considered to have been controlled mainly by compressional intraplate stresses that built up in the Carpathian foreland during the collision of the Inner Carpathian orogenic wedge with the European passive margin, attesting to their increasing mechanical coupling, commencing during the Turonian. These stresses relaxed, however, with the end-Paleocene onset of imbrication of the Outer Carpathian domain, reflecting decoupling of the Carpathian orogenic wedge from its foreland.