Applied Salt-Rock Mechanics. The in-situ behavior of salt by C. A. Baar

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2-14. Location map, showing the present edge of the Prairie Evaporite salt. ) 32 Fig. 2-15. Local brine seepage, IMC-K 1, Saskatchewan (Baar, 1974a). MgCl2 brine was trapped in pockets between halite crystals such as shown in Figs. 2-12 and 2-13. The term "salt horse" indicates a barren area in the potash bed, consisting of rock salt. different degrees in various parts of the basin of deposition. It is emphasized that highly concentrated MgCl2 brines are occasionally encountered in the potash mines which operate in this deposit; Fig.

Similar brecciation of carnallite and of other salt rocks has occurred more frequently in salt domes and similar structures, due to extensive tectonic deformations. 3 Salt crystallization in voids due to bed separation Another phenomenon related to the loss of volume by carnallite conver­ sion to sylvite also has remarkable analogies in mining: the separation of salt beds along planes of weakness provided by interbedded layers of clay, opened voids which may have been filled with secondary salts crystallizing from migrating solutions.

These coarse masses of detritus, with blocks more than half a meter in diam­ eter, partly lie on top of the pierced salt and have partly been intercalated as rock flows in the flank sediments. It seems that the debris of the broken roof is entrained by the salt paste in process of extrusion, and remains as 'saline moraines\ after the salt has been leached out. " Borchert and Muir (1964, p. 252), in their shortened version of Lotze's (1957, p. 282) report on salt glaciers, are in apparent agreement with such conclusions drawn from Recent salt glaciers; their statements may also be quoted: "Occasionally, as in Iran or northern Spain, salt domes or diapirs manage to extend right to the surface.