Salt deposits of the Mescalero Plains area, Chaves County, New Mexico

Technical Report · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1974

OSTI ID:5752064

Jones, C L

Salt deposits in the Mescalero Plains area of Chaves County, New Mexico, belong to the Guadalupian and Ochoan Series of Late Permian age. The Guadalupian deposits are part of a complex succession of red beds and evaporite deposits known as the Artesia Group. The Artesia is 1200 to 1800 feet (365 to 550 m) thick and is about one-half rock salt and anhydrite and one-half dolomite and red beds composed of sandstone, siltstone, and shale. Much of its rock salt is clayey and is intercalated between beds of sandstone and siltstone. The thickest and most clay-free seams of rock salt are in the Salado Formation of the Ochoan Series. The Salado is as much as 820 feet (250 m) thick, and it is dominantly rock salt that contains minor amounts of anhydrite, polyhalite, clay, and traces of sylvite and carnallite. The salt in the Salado underlies an eastwardly thickening wedge of overburden, ranging to 1580 feet (480 m) in thickness, and it has undergone partial or complete solution beneath large sections of the overburden.

• Research Organization: Geological Survey, Denver, CO (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AI05-76OR14339
• OSTI ID: 5752064
• Report Number(s): USGS-4339-11; ON: DE88004190
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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