Tectonic controls on the deposits of a foreland basin: an example from the Eocene Corbières–Minervois basin, France

During the Eocene in the Corbières–Minervois foreland basin, southern France, there was a transition from marine carbonate to fluvial–lacustrine sedimentation. This evolution took place in six depositional sequences, the first controlled by a eustatic rise or flexural downwarping, then following under compressive tectonic conditions. The second to the fourth sequences show marine to marshy, mainly carbonate sediments with a transgressive–regressive evolution, while the last two comprise terrigenous and carbonate continental sediments. The tectonic evolution is marked by blind fault‐propagation folds which deformed the basin during the Ilerdian–Cuisian. A paroxysmal compressive tectonic phase occurred at the Bartonian when the ancient blind thrusts started to emerge. A model for the evolution of the basin is presented, involving the northward propagation of structural culminations, which focused shallow water or emergent conditions, and structural lows in which deeper water sedimentation took place. The diachronous migration of these structural zones can be constrained from the high biostratigraphic resolution of the foreland basin fill.