Salt Dome

salt dome, largely subsurface geologic structure that consists of a vertical cylinder of salt (including halite and other evaporites) 1 km (0.6 mile) or more in diameter, embedded in horizontal or inclined strata. In the broadest sense, the term includes both the core of salt and the strata that surround and are “domed” by the core. Similar geologic structures in which salt is the main component are salt pillows and salt walls, which are related genetically to salt domes, and salt anticlines, which are essentially folded rocks pierced by upward migrating salt. Other material, such as gypsum and shale, form the cores of similar geologic structures, and all such structures, including salt domes, are known as diapiric structures, or diapirs, from the Greek word diapeirein, “to pierce.” The embedded material in all instances appears to have pierced surrounding rocks. Upward flow is believed to have been caused by the following: gravity forces, in situations where relatively light rocks are overlain by relatively heavy rocks and the light rocks rise like cream to the surface; tectonic (earth-deformation) forces, in situations where mobile material (not necessarily lighter) is literally squeezed by lateral stress through less mobile material; or a combination of both gravity and tectonic forces.

Salt domes are one of a number of kinds of salt structures whose interrelationships are shown diagrammatically in Figure 1. “Classic” salt domes develop directly from bedded salt by gravitational stress alone. Salt domes also may develop from salt walls and salt anticlines, however. In the latter case, the development of the domes results from superposition of gravitational stress on salt masses that initially developed due to tectonic stress.