Colorado-Utah Salt Domes

Abstract

Several saline anticlines and plugs have been discovered along the Colorado-Utah line. Drilled wells have penetrated several hundred feet of salt, in which appear important showings of oil and gas. The Pennsylvanian, beds are involved. It is believed that the salt beds were deposited in embayments of Lower Hermosan time or older, also that these beds offer ample source rocks. The domes and anticlines are divided into four groups. The first includes those saline anticlines on which plugs have been developed locally; the second, saline anticlines which have not reached the plug stage but on which local domes have been formed recently, due to differential loading built up by the cutting stream; third, domes not associated with anticlines which also owe their existence to differential loading; and fourth, a structural anticline, called the Meander Anticline, which occupies the Colorado River Canyon and follows that stream in its tortuous meanderings from above Green River, to and beyond it, into the well-known Cataract Canyon. Attention is given the attempts being made to develop oil and to the possibilities. The writer also touches briefly upon the igneous phenomena associated with the area.