Messinian halite and residual facies in the Crotone Basin (Calabria, Italy)

The Neogene Crotone basin in eastern Calabria contains extensive Messinian evaporite deposits, including thick gypsarenite and halite bodies. The halite deposit reaches a maximum thickness of ~300 m and in some areas forms relatively small diapirs piercing late Messinian and Pliocene sediments. Halite is strongly modified by folding and recrystallisation, but a few primary features are preserved. Four primary halite facies have been recognised: (a) banded halite consisting of folded white and dark bands deposited in a salt pan and/or saline mudflat; (b) white facies, massive halite containing anhydrite nodules, probably formed in a variably desiccating saline lake; (c) clear facies made up of a mosaic of large blocky halite crystals separated by mud, possibly the product of displacive halite growth in a saline mudflat; and (d) breccia facies, a product of dissolution of halite/mudstone/siltstone layers;Residual facies formed from halite dissolution are present as both, weld- and cap-rocks. Weld-rocks are thick, undeformed, and composed only of insoluble phases originally included in the salt, whereas cap-rocks are thin, strongly sheared and include clasts from the cover rocks.