Salt from Bonneville Salt Flats

Bonneville Salt Flats looking north toward the Silver Island Mountains and Floating Island (small and to the right).

While on our recent trip to Ogden, Utah, MOH and I stopped at the northern of two view-oriented rest stops located on I-80 near the Salduro railroad siding about 8 miles east of the Utah-Nevada border (MSRMaps location). Both rest stops provide good viewing of the Bonneville Salt Flats. From the northern rest stop parking lot you can walk out onto the flats, or at least to the edge of the flats, depending on water level or dryness.

Google Street View at northern rest stop

I didn't walk out very far, just to water's edge. A few other people were out a little farther; someone was collecting salt in large bags, probably for personal use.
A chunk of salt in its native habitat.
MOH brought a small piece of salt home, to add to our mostly unlabeled mineral collection. This is the side with the largest crystals.
Side view of same salt chunk.
View of the opposite side. One of the two sides had encrusted a surface of some kind; I'm not really sure which side was up and which was down.
Salt, more properly known as halite or NaCl, is a cubic mineral.
Cubes on top of cubes.
Tiny cubes.
More cubes.

Halite is a relatively soft mineral with a Mohs Hardness of 2½, meaning that it's barely not scratchable with your fingernail (which is also 2½), but it can be scratched by almost anything else, including a copper penny, a knife, a piece of glass, and steel. Halite tastes salty (surprise!), but not as bitter as the related potassium salt, sylvite (KCl).

Potash (mostly KCl) is mined from the Bonneville Salt Flats, as is magnesium chloride brine, which is used to produce magnesium metal and chlorine gas (for various purposes), and magnesium chloride, which is used as a dust suppressant on dirt roads and for other products.

A Few Links:
Mineral production from the Great Salt Lake

Mining and land speed records come together at Bonneville Salt Flats

View halite with a petrographic scope at Life in Plane Light

Mining and Exploration News

Just a few summaries and links to mining and exploration stories out recently. Excuse some dorky titles. How can you tell which titles are dorky? Easy, the dorky ones are mine.


From Ron Schott's Geology Picks:
Not so Good Oil and Gas Exploration in Washington state

From Geology.com:
Surprise, surprise, there's a new gold rush in CA!
Internet Addiction - do YOU suffer from it? (Oops - not mining related unless you are reading this blog post over and over again!)

Also from Geology.com:
Geologists are needed in Australia

But in other reports (and comments), jobs aren't really available unless you KNOW SOMEONE.

Canada can't attract women into mining jobs according to this article - also from Geology News - although on my spring field trip, all the women geologists were Canadian, except for me.

Mining and petroleum-related jobs are still going strong - from Arizona Geology.
Space radar can be used to improve mine safety in underground mines, from EurekAlert!

I could find no reference in the above news release to open-pit mines - I guess we're on our own! Also, the news release mentioned driving the referenced new equipment through mineshafts. Mine shafts are vertical, and no underground trucks or truck drivers drive up and down through these things (shafts). The driving is done in mine tunnels or adits, and in declines or inclines. Declines are mine tunnels or adits that descend gradually as you walk into a mine (or drive - a geologist should be so lucky!); inclines are tunnels that go uphill at a very slight angle as you enter the mine, usually for drainage purposes. Also, the article speaks of the "roofs" of underground mines, a somewhat vague term that could refer to the rocks immediately overhead while underground, or possibly to surface rocks above the entire mine - I'm not really sure which, because if you are in an underground mine, the surface over your head is called the "back." And that's because when the old-timers made their tunnels, they were typically not very high, and the miners had to bend over to enter and walk through them, thus having their backs almost in contact with the "ceiling" of the mine adit.
Last but not least, lots of things have been happening in Arizona - as usual - see these articles and more at Arizona Geology:

• Vale do Rio Doce reported to be looking at Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold (as a takeover target)
• Freeport is the most likely takeover target
• Drilling is underway at Tombstone
• Why Are So Many Companies investing in Arizona Mines?
• White Cliffs diatomite and zeolites
• Arizona potash looking attractive
• Vale denies takeover plans

Arizona Geology shows a neat, colorful table comparing commodity prices over the past decade, described somewhat more fully at Pitpundit Blog.