Browsing by Subject "salt deposits"

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Salt Cavern Studies- Regional Map of Salt Thickness in the Midland Basin
(1977) Hovorka, Susan D.
Regional variation in the thickness of the major bedded salt-bearing interval of West Texas, the Salado Formation, provides a screening criterion for separating areas where the salt is heterogeneous, complex, and potentially less stable from areas where salt is more homogeneous. Areas of reduced and variable salt thickness and relatively shallow depths to the top of the salt are identified on the eastern shelf of the Midland Basin in Garza, Borden, Howard, Glasscock, and Reagan counties; along the Pecos River in Crockett, Upton, Crane, and Pecos Counties; and along the western edge of the Central Basin Platform in Ward and Winkler Counties. Reconnaissance data suggest that salt may be locally or regionally actively dissolving from these areas. Salt thinning in areas where the top of salt is relatively deep (> 1500 ft) is noted south of the Matador Arch in Cochran, Hockley, and Lubbock counties, and locally along the eastern edge of the Central Basin Platform in Gaines, Andrews, and Ector Counties. The thinning in these areas is tentatively interpreted as dominantly the result of deposition of thin salt or Permian salt dissolution. In all the areas of thinning, sedimentary patterns suggest that facies changes may also change the quality of the salt (salt purity, water content, bed thickness) over short distances. In other areas within the Midland and Delaware Basins, salt thickness changes are gradual. However, the potential for local areas of salt dissolution, not identified in this regional study (for example, those that may be beneath saline lakes), to impact the suitability of salt in these areas as host strata for cavern development was not investigated.
The Feasibility of Locating a Texas Salt Test Facility
(1981) Finley, Robert J.; Ledbetter, Joe O.; Wermund, E. G.
Differences in the geology of dome salt and bedded salt dictate that data and mining experience gained in one environment will not be fully applicable to the other. A test facility in a salt dome could be mined through a relatively thin section of elastic, a cap rock of evaporite minerals that may contain highly porous zones, and possibly 300 m (1,000 ft) of salt. The salt will probably be quite pure except for a few percent anhydrite, increasing in concentration toward the top of the salt stock (Balk, 1949; Muehlberger, 1959; and Dutton and Kreitler, 1980). Infrequent inclusions of the surrounding sediments may be found in dome salt that has been highly contorted and whose crystals show translational gliding as a result of salt dome emplacement (Muehlberger, 1959; Clabaugh, 1962; and Hofrichter, 1968). Access to bedded salt will require mining through a sequence of predominantly terrigenous elastics and evaporites. The degree of consolidation, porosity, and permeability of these sediments will vary between horizons. The objective interval will be a required thickness of relatively pure salt. Crystallographic properties, water content, and elastic inclusions will be results of the original depositional environment rather than emplacement of a salt stock. The feasibility of locating a Salt Test Facility in Texas has been studied and evaluated. Measured parameters are summarized in table 1. For primarily technical reasons, the most feasible Texas sites are the Gyp Hill salt dome in Brooks County or bedded salt in Loving County.