Growth Structures, Piggy-Back Basins And Growth Strata Of The Georgian Part Of The Kura Foreland Fold-Thrust Belt: Implications For Late Alpine Kinematic Evolution

The Kura foreland fold-thrust belt is located in the northern part of the active collisional Lesser Caucasus orogenic belt associated with Arabia-Eurasia convergence. This belt is the best example of mountain-building processes in late Alpine time. Seismic reflection profiles show that the Kura foreland fold-thrust belt of the eastern Caucasus is an active thin-skinned fold-thrust belt and is represented by fault-bend folds, fault-propagation folds and duplexes. Analysis of growth strata in seismic profiles and oil well data from the Kura foreland fold-thrust belt documents that the evolution of deformation has been continuing during the last c. 14-15 myr (since the Middle Miocene), together with the thrust system kinematics. The geometry of the growth strata is associated with footwall synclines and piggy-back basins. Compressional deformation on the Kura foreland began in the Middle Miocene (Chokrakian) and reached its maximum rate at the end of the Miocene (c. 5 Ma).