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2 years ago in Economics , Metamorphic Petrology By Sato
Which intrusive rocks are rich in rock salt?
While reviewing aeromagnetic data over a sedimentary basin, I've identified anomalies that suggest shallow intrusive bodies. The regional geology also includes thick evaporite sequences. Could hydrothermal fluids associated with a shallow intrusion mobilize and re-precipitate halite within the intrusive rock itself, creating a "salt-rich" intrusion? Or is halite strictly confined to sedimentary and evaporite contexts?
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By Ritika Answered 1 year ago
In standard petrology, halite is not a magmatic mineral; it decomposes at magmatic temperatures. However, what you're describing is plausible in a very specific scenario. I have seen cases where highly saline hydrothermal brines, derived from dissolving adjacent evaporites, pervasively alter shallow sub-volcanic intrusions. This can result in a rock that is texturally igneous (porphyritic) but mineralogically an altered wreck containing secondary halite, sylvite, and other salts filling veins and vesicles. It wouldn't be a primary igneous rock, but an intensely metasomatized one. Your geophysical anomalies might reflect both the intrusion and the associated altered, salted zone.
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