North America Rock Salt Atlas is the regional section of the World Rock Salt Atlas documenting natural halite deposits in the United States, Canada and Mexico, including bedded rock-salt formations, salt domes, active and historical mines and solution-mining systems.
Rock Salt Geology of North America
North America contains enormous halite systems of very different geological ages and tectonic settings. Silurian Salina Group salts occur around the Great Lakes; Permian evaporites extend across the southwestern United States; and deeply buried salt along the Louisiana and Gulf of Mexico region has risen plastically to form major salt domes.
Silurian Salina Rock Salt
Beneath Michigan, Ohio, New York and Ontario are Silurian evaporite sequences approximately 420 million years old. Within the Salina Group, bedded halite successions in some areas reach total thicknesses of several hundred metres.
Permian Basin Rock Salt
The Permian Basin extending through Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas contains very extensive and thick evaporite systems. USGS studies report that some evaporite formations in the region can range from roughly 60 to 500 metres in thickness.
Louisiana Salt Domes
Along the Louisiana Gulf Coast, deeply buried rock-salt masses rose plastically under sediment loading and formed enormous salt domes. Cote Blanche, Avery Island, Weeks Island, Belle Isle and Jefferson Island are historically well-known examples of this geological system.
Rock Salt in Canada
Southern Ontario in particular contains very thick Silurian halite deposits forming the northeastern continuation of the Michigan Basin salt system. Goderich and Windsor-Ojibway are among the continent’s most important active underground rock-salt operations.
Underground Halite Systems in Mexico
Although much of Mexico’s salt production comes from marine and surface saltworks, official sources document rock-salt-derived brines used for sal gema production in Veracruz and Nuevo León. Deep salt diapirs of the Salina Formation in the Isthmus region of Veracruz have also been studied geologically.
North America Country Files
Major Mine Files
Scope of the Atlas
This section covers only natural subsurface halite deposits. Large surface saltworks, sea-salt production and direct lake-salt production are outside the scope of the North America Rock Salt Atlas.
Primary Sources
- USGS – Silurian Salt Deposits of Michigan, Ohio and New York
- USGS – Permian Evaporites of the Southwestern United States
- Compass Minerals – Goderich Rock Salt Mine
- Mexican Federal Government – Rock Salt and Salt Production
North America Rock Salt Mines – Package 2
- Cleveland – Lake Erie Rock Salt Mine
- Hutchinson – Kansas Rock Salt and Strataca
- Hampton Corners – New York Rock Salt Mine
- Ojibway – Windsor Ontario Rock Salt Mine