SALT DOME ENTRY BY CHEMICAL REACTIONS COMBINED WITH FORCE

Disequilibrium reactions expend excess energies in earth’s gradients of temperature, pressure, composition, electromagnetic and gravitational fields. Liquid solutions react by principles of chemical solubility and kinetics. Stress effects fade with depth. Differential solubilities in gradients control silicate reaction cells. Energies of liquefaction are cycled in dissolution and precipitation. Magmas emplace hot spots, volcanoes and granites. Buoyant reaction cells of Papoose Flat-type plutons penetrate to unusually shallow levels and are stressed. Destabilized minerals of plutons and container rocks dissolve in intergranular fluids and replaced by new minerals. Highly viscous salt layers slowly deform into mounds. Fresh waters dissolves halite and increases solution to solid ratios, enhancing buoyancy by lowering densities and viscosities. Brines of columns contact country rocks with which they are far out of equilibrium. Exothermic reactions heat liquids that rise along contacts transporting dissolved matter upward along retreating interfaces. Upward movement is mainly chemical to shallow brittle zones, in which domes, shatter zones surface materials form. Contacts sharply cut stratigraphic units with little evidences of force. Salt dome seals (wrapped around minerals) are stable in brines, such as anhydrite. Brines react with country rocks, to form calcite layers above domes.