US EPA

8755349 

Journal Article 

Salt domes 

Martinez, JD 

1991 

0 

American Scientist
ISSN: 0003-0996
EISSN: 1545-2786 

79 

5 

420-431 

English 

The origin and development of underground columns of salt near the US Gulf of Mexico coast is described, concentrating on the three clusters of on-shore domes generally located between Tyler, Texas, and Jackson, Mississippi. The thick Jurassic salt bed was overlain by sedimentary strata through which the domes rise from the "mother layer' as "fingers' of salt due to their relative buoyancy. Salt-dome resources have yielded petroleum and other hydrocarbons, but salt mining by room-and-pillar or solution mining has been the main use. More recently their utilisation for disposal of high-level nuclear and chemically hazardous wastes, and as cavities for compressed air needed by gas turbine-driven generators, has been explored. Hazards and environmental costs involved in these operations are also discussed. -J.W.Cooper