Fluid‐assisted particulate flow of turbidites at very low temperature: A key to tight folding in a submarine Variscan foreland basin of SW Europe

The problem addressed in this article is how sedimentary formations like turbidites in a foreland basin, which include layers with apparently great competence contrast, can be tightly folded in a regular manner under very low temperature and pressure. This raises two major issues: the rheological behavior of the rocks at the time of folding and the role played by fluids. In order to understand very low temperature folding and the structural evolution of a submarine foreland basin, we carried out detailed structural work in turbidites with alternating sandstone and shale, for which estimated peak temperature conditions were top diagenetic to very low grade metamorphism. Folds are tight to isoclinal, with local collapsed hinges, which implies that the incompetent shale was mobile enough to flow away from strongly flattened areas. We did not find evidence for cataclastic flow or crystal plasticity at mesoscopic and microscopic scales. Other structures (mostly boudins, foliations, conjugate brittle faults, and quartz veins) associated with folds denote anisotropic compaction by fluid extraction during regional shortening. This is possible if the folded rocks were unconsolidated, fluid‐saturated sediments. The estimated low peak temperature is consistent with the shale being unlithified. Poorly cemented grains are free to slide past one another under shallow burial or high pore pressure conditions. Following this line of thought, we consider independent particulate flow assisted by fluids under very low confining pressure (bean bag analogy) as the rock deformation mechanism active during the described intense folding. Similar deformation is likely occurring (and has occurred) in other submarine accretionary wedges.