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Abstract: The Badenian salt massif from Sovata is among the main salt diapirs from the Transylvanian Basin. It belongs to the eastern diapiric alignments (Şieu–Odorheiu Secuiesc–Sovata–Praid). The salt tectonics was mainly controlled by the uplift of Eastern Carpathians accompanied by high heat flow due to Neogene volcanism, generating the gravity spreading of the overburden salt. In Sovata area younger deposits are cropping out too: Pannonian sediments and Neogene volcanic breccias and agglomerates. The salt deposition was controlled by climate, tectonics, eustatism and palaeogeography. As indicated by the salt deposit mineralogy, the sedimentary conditions covered the range from the last stage of carbonates precipitation to halite. Simultaneously, an input of clastic material into the sedimentary basin from the surrounding area, took place. Such environment explains the presence of two genetically-different sets of minerals in the salt deposit from Sovata: of authigenic (halite, anhydrite, gypsum, calcite, and dolomite), as well as allogenic (quartz, clay minerals, feldspars etc.) origins. Under the microscope, two different types of fluid inclusions in halite were identified: primary inclusions in undissolved “core” of halite crystals, and secondary fluids distributed either parallel to the new cleavage planes of the recrystallized halite, or as clouds next to the planes/cracks generated by deformational events.

Keyword: salt deposit, halite, sulfates, carbonates, allogenic minerals, Sovata, Romania