Numerical simulation of salt migration -- Large deformation in viscoelastic solid bodies

Abstract

We consider instability of a two layered solid body of a denser material on top of a lighter one. This problem is widely known to geoscientist in sediment-salt migration as salt diapirism. In the literature, this problem has often been treated as Raleigh-Taylor instability in viscous fluids instead of solid bodies. In this paper, we propose a successive linear approximation method for large deformation in viscoelastic solids as a model for salt migration.