GD
Geodynamics

Francina Saiz

Francina Saiz is a PhD student at the University of Bergen (Norway). She was originally trained in the classical branches of geology at the University of Barcelona, focusing on the Southern Pyrenees and the Northern Calcareous Alps (Austria). Her current research builds on this background by investigating the foreland fold-and-thrust belts of the Andes through numerical modeling. The project aims to understand variations in structural style deriving from complex interactions between tectonics and surface processes in both 2D and 3D.

Growing geological Christmas trees: salt ‘Christmas-tree’ structures explained

and December 3, 2025
Regional profile through salt structures in the eastern part of the Dutch graben, southern North Sea
Figure 1: Regional profile through salt structures in the eastern part of the Dutch graben, southern North Sea (adapted from Butler, 2022).

As geoscientists, we tend to see geology everywhere. Around Christmas, many people stare at decorated fir trees and twinkling lights; salt tectonicists stare at seismic lines and outcrops and see… trees as well. Tall stems, branching limbs, stacked “tiers” of material; a whole forest of geological Christmas trees hiding in the subsurface. In salt provinces around the world, from the Flinders Range ...[Read More]