Jebel Kebbouch halokinesis (NW Tunisia): Shallow water emplacement and evolution of an Albian "salt glacier"

In the J. Kebbouch box fold, previously regarded as a typical diapir, the w estern slope shows Albian limestones and marls pinching out below a lens of chaotic Triassic rocks. These last ones, overlain by shelly limestones and tidal/sebkha dolomites, then marls and marly limestones, Vraconian (upperm ost Albian) in age, appear therefore as an Albian interstratified body. The diversity of younger Cretaceous levels overlying these Triassic rocks can be explained by Cretaceous raft tectonics, as at Gueurn Halfaya, more to th e SW. The organisation of gravimetric anomalies allows to exclude the prese nce of any large depth salt root. As in other neighbouring jebels, the Tria ssic rocks could correspond to an Albian submarine "salt glacier", forming a flat body emplaced in shallow waters and covered by sebkha sediments whic h represent regionally, the eastern lateral equivalent of Algerian-Tunisian coral-algal Albian reefs. For us the present box fold structure would resu lt only from Tertiary compressional events.