Evaporites are of great economic importance and have a wide range of uses and applications.
Evaporites are the main source of halite, sodium chloride, low purity halite is used for roads, and higher grades are refined for culinary salt and as a source of sodium chloride for the chemical and metal industries.
Potassium evaporites such as sylvite are the main source of potassium used as a fertilizer in agriculture.
Buried evaporite sequences can also be important in the oil and gas industries as halite and sylvite can flow under burial pressure, and are able to rise as 'diapers', buckling overlying sedimentary layers in domes that may act as traps for hydrocarbons.
Geologically evaporites are useful in the studies of paleoclimatology since they are generally restricted to areas of low latitude, where temperatures are very high, relative humidity is low and evaporation far exceeds rainfall.
Now test your knowledge of evaporites:
REFERENCES/LINKS
Sabkhas (Salt Flats) Field Trip West's Geology Field Trips
An informative external website discussing evaporite facies within sabkha environments with good images and a range of subjects, with excellent examples from Dorset to the Arabian Gulf ****
http://www.soton.ac.uk/~imw/sabkha.htm
Sand Roses of Saudi Arabia, by Denis Mougenot
An interesting external website about sand roses, going into some detail about the formation, petrological properties, and the different types of sand roses that occur ***
http://membres.lycos.fr/middle_east/Mougenot.html
Gresham's Gypsum Rosette page
An external website outlining gypsum rosettes with examples from around the world, describing their morphologies and depositional environments **
http://www.earlham.edu/~greshjo/Rosette.htm
8303 Ancient Environments, Sedimentary Environments: Evaporitic
An informative internal website providing modern examples of evaporite depositional environments, outlining the dominant processes and characteristics of deposits ****
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/geology/8303/8303evap.htm
Boggs, S. JR., (1995). Principles of Sedimentology and Stratigraphy 2nd Ed. Prentice-Hall, Inc. USA.
McLane, M., (1995). Sedimentology. Oxford University Press, Inc. USA.
Reading, H.G., (1996). Sedimentary Environments: Processes, Facies and Stratigraphy 3rd Ed. Blackwell Science Ltd.
Tucker, M.E., (1991). Sedimentary Petrology an introduction to the origin of sedimentary rocks 2nd Ed. Blackwell Science Ltd.
This page is created by Pamela Williams
Last Modified:18/06/02