Summer 2019
Saltwork Training in evaporite systemsWe are committed to offering up to date and comprehensive understandings in all training related to saline geosystems
intro
A TRAINING MESSAGE FROM THE SALTWORKSThe catalogue outlines the various training modules we offer across all applied aspects of evaporite studies.
Our course structure is modular so you, or your training coordinator, can construct a training program that meets your particular needs.
The recommended program length is three to five days, made up of two to three days of the “under-standings” module (1000 code #’s), followed by a more special-ized one to three days.
Our advanced modules are suit-able for specific interests;1) potash (2100 code #’s)2) oil & gas (2200 code #’s)3) resources (23-2600’s codes)
We can also integrate training with the specific problem sets that your staff are working with, including core, wireline, assay, seismic and other data sets. In-troductory aspects of training by a hands-on use of these data sets are also possible (e.g. an intro-duction to wireline interpreta-tion, followed by wireline inter-pretation in carbonates). Talk to us and we will design a program for you.
EVAPORITES, OIL, GAS, MINERALS & ORESMost geologists and geophysicists working in oil and gas provinces, or base and precious metals systems, where-ever salt or related brines are present, know that salt has played a role in forming the commodity of interest. What they may not fully appreciate is that the role of the various salt and brines can be used as a predictive tool to focus better their exploration and development efforts.
Some salty facts:
• 50% of all giant and supergiant oil and gas fields in carbon-ate-hosted reservoirs are associated with evaporites.
• 70% of all giant stratiform copper deposits are related to evaporites, their brines and associated fluid interfaces.
• Many Pb-Zn and IOCG associations are related to saline brine systems and are tied to dissolving or altering evaporites and their daughter products, along with associated redox interfaces.
• 95% of the world’s annual production of potash salts is used by the fertiliser industry.
Want to know how and why this relatively small group of sediments, their brines and their metamorphic products are so significant to so many aspects across the applied geo-industries? We can share this knowledge and show you how to use it improve exploration and development efficiencies.
Contact us: www.saltworkconsultants.com
http://www.saltworkconsultants.com
Understandings (2 days)
To deal with more specialized commodity-specific topics, the course participant must first gain an understanding of what constitutes an evap-orite, its brine system and its residues, within a tectonic and climatic framework
The four modules listed on this page give participants the comprehensive background and conceptual frame needed to tackle the more advanced topic sets listed on the following pages.
Once these general topic sets are mastered, the client company can choose which of the advanced topic sets best fit their training needs.
Messinian gypsum, Sicily
Cane Creek pans, Utah
Ancient evaporite settings
Naica gypsum, Mexico
What is an evaporite? (half-day)Evaporite beds are deposited and then altered, with charac-teristic textures indicating the original hydrological setting and ocean chemistry, as well as the various diagenetic fluids it was exposed to during buri-al, re-equilibration and uplift.
CODE # TOPIC
1000.01 Evaporation vs. cryogenesis
1000.02 Depositional textures
1000.03 Diagenetic textures
1000.04 Gypsum and anhydrite
1000.05 Halite and trona
1000.06 Saline clay authigenesis
Brine evolution (half-day) Every evaporite sequence min-eralogy and daughter product is controlled by brine evolu-tion pathways. This evolution is preserved in brine chemis-tries and typical isotopic sig-natures (S, O, C, Cl).
CODE # TOPIC
1025.01 Marine, nonmarine & climate
1025.02 Inclusion chemistries
1025.03 Isotopic signatures
1025.04 Surface & nearsurface brine
1025.05 Basinal & metamorphic brine
Ancient basins and tectonics (half day)In evaporite geosystems, the present offers a limited sam-pling of broader evaporite as-sociations in the past. This re-flects the limited climatic and tectonic spectrum seen in to-day’s evaporites. Past systems were more significant.
CODE # TOPIC
1050.00 Eustasy, greenhouse, icehouse
1050.01 Continental basins
1050.02 Marine-margin basins
1050.03 Ancient basinwide systems
1050.04 Tectonic controls
1050.05 Basin evolution across time
Evaporite that was (half day)Although largely unrecog-nized, there are widespread indicators of evaporites in suc-cessions where thick sequenc-es of salt have long since dis-solved in cross-flushing basinal waters.
CODE # TOPIC
1075.01 How and where salts dissolve
1075.01 Saline karst, present & past
1075.02 Breccias, which are salty?
1075.03 Nodules & pseudomorphs
1075.04 Indicators of fluid pathways
This one-day advanced course focuses on the geological controls of potash deposition and diagenesis. It emphasizes the utility of applied geological knowledge in improving efficiencies during exploration and development.
Some 90-95% of the world’s potash annual production is used in the fertil-izer industry. Most of this product is muriate of potash (KCl) with less production of the premium product - sulfate of potash.
Geological sources of potash are either from brine extraction (includ-ing solution mining and processing of playa brines) or from the conven-tional mining of bedded and halokinetic potash.
Geology of potash (1-2 days)
Dead Sea
Lop Nur, China
Wendover feeders
Dead Sea Carnallitite beds Solikamsk sinkhole, Nov. 2014
Lop Nur, China Sylvinite Dead Sea sinkholes
Wendover feeders Zechstein salt Patience Lake mine
Brine extractionBrine extraction is utilized in all current examples of Quaternary production of muriate of potash and sulfate of potash.
Depending on brine inflow propor-tions, which are controlled by ge-ology in the drainage hinterland and the climate (evaporitic versus cryogenic), the product is either carnallite (e.g. the Dead Sea and Wendover Utah) or sulfate of pot-ash (Lop Nur and Great Salt Lake).
CODE # TOPIC
2125.01 Marine vs. nonmarine
2125.02 Tectonics & brines
2125.03 SOP vs. MOP
Geology The greater part of the world’s potash is conventionally mined from ancient salt beds or diapiric salt masses in Canada, Russia, Be-larus, UK, and Germany.
Geological characterisation of all the world’s potash deposits shows that even in the vast bedded de-posits of Canada, early through late diagenesis is a significant control on ore quality.
CODE # TOPIC
2150.01 Potash across time
2150.02 Diagenesis and ore
2150.03 World potash basins
2150.04 Exploration criteria
HazardsThe high solubility of evaporitic salts, especially the potash bit-terns means there are particular problems and hazards associated with the utilization of bedded and halokinetic potash.
Pervasive natural karst typifies all past and present salt deposits. Ef-fects of these natural geohazards can be increased if flood possibili-ties are not accounted for from the sinking of the first shaft and throughout the life of the mine.
CODE # TOPIC
2175.01 Keep it in the “salt”
2175.02 Natural or not?
2175.03 Seeing the problem
Many of the world’s larger oil and gas fields occur in halokinetically-influ-enced structures across many of the world’s salt basins (e.g. Campos Basin, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Lower Congo Basin, Santos Basin and Zagros).
A predictive understanding of the physics of salt and how salt flow influ-ences tectonics, reservoir sedimentation and its evolution is, therefore, critical to effective and efficient petroleum exploration.
This advanced module explores the detail and predictive outcomes involved in gaining an understanding of the hydrocarbon-evaporite asso-ciation.
Oil and gas (1-2 days)
Salt kinetics
Salt kinetics Bitumens in Ara salt Hutt Lagoon
Salt tectonicsMany of the world’s oil and gas fields occur in halokinetically-in-fluenced structures across many of the world’s salt basins (e.g. Campos Basin, Gulf of Mexico, North Sea, Lower Congo Basin, Santos Basin and Zagros).
The course gives a predictive un-derstanding of salt and how it controls local and regional salt tectonics, reservoir sedimenta-tion and diagenesis (poroperm). This is critical to effective and ef-ficient petroleum exploration and field development.
» Salt tectonics & basin-scales » Predictive salt models » Circum-salt diagenesis.
Saline reservoirs A large proportion of the world’s giant and supergiant oil and gas fields are associated with salt. With carbonate reservoirs, this proportion is more than 50%.
This is especially apparent in the Middle East and in circum-Atlantic Aptian settings. Worldwide, all giant and supergiant gas fields in thrust belts have an evaporite seal.
Salt acts a seal to underlying and adjacent reservoirs. In diagenesis, it supplies brines than can create or enhance reservoir poroperm.
» Physics of salt seals » Bedded associations » Halokinetic associations » Dolomite & evaporites.
Source rocksOil in carbonate reservoirs, sealed by evaporite salts, may have been sourced in earlier less saline, but still related, evaporitic (meso-haline) conditions.
Similar conditions favor evaporite and organic matter preservation.
» Halotolerants tend to flourish in mesohaline waters.
» Why “feast and famine” makes source rocks
» Organic geochemistry of halotolerants and halophiles
» Indicative biomarkers » The four main ancient
evaporitic source rock systems
» Time limits of the modern.
Salt flows and so creates traps and
fluid foci
Salt maintains its seal integrity
Saline systems en-courage the preser-vation of organics
CODE # TOPIC
2225.01 Physics of salt
2225.02 Extensional systems
2225.03 Compressional
2225.04 Circum-salt systems
CODE # TOPIC
2250.01 Salt seal integrity
2250.02 Beds, plays & plumes
2250.03 Halokinetic reservoir
2250.04 Dolomitisation & salt
CODE # TOPIC
2275.01 Salinity tolerances
2275.02 Halotolerant & philes
2275.03 Organic indicators
2275.04 Depositional settings
many sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits are closely associated with evaporites, or indicators of former evaporites, as are a number of SedEx and MVT deposit
Many sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits are closely associ-ated with evaporites, or indicators of former evaporites, as are many-SedEx and MVT deposits. This is because most subsurface evaporites ulti-mately dissolve and, through their ongoing dissolution and alteration, can create subsurface carriers and conditions suitable for metal enrich-ment and entrapment. This occurs in subsurface settings ranging from the burial diagenetic through to the metamorphic and igneous realms. It means various metal accumulations of Cu, Pb, Zn, Au and U, with an evaporite association, tend to plot at the larger end of their respective deposit groupings.
Within this framework, this advanced module explores relationships between evaporites and ore deposits, where ore is defined as a mineral, or an aggregate of minerals, from which a valuable constituent, espe-cially a metal, can be profitably mined or extracted. As well as lower temperature deposits we also explore the significance of dissolving and altering evaporites in ore deposits formed within the higher tempera-ture igneous and metamorphic realms.
Metals and salts (1-2 days)
Salt anticline focus
Corocoro Copper
Atlantis II Deep
Salt anticline focus Cadjebut galena
Corocoro Copper Ref: 6800.00
Atlantis II Deep Re
Stratabound CuSediment-hosted stratiform cop-per (SSC) deposits worldwide rank second only to porphyry copper deposits in terms of copper pro-duction and are the most impor-tant global source of cobalt.
Locally, most of these deposits are stratabound (confined to a particu-lar stratum), and are more or less concordant or peneconcordant, either with saline beds, or with the edge of a salt mass or its residues.
CODE # TOPIC
2325.01 Low T Cu carriers
2325.02 Giant bedded ore
2325.03 Giant halokinetic ore
2325.04 Predictive textures
Pb and ZnMany of the larger carbonate-host-ed Pb-Zn deposits within the MVT and SedEx groups of deposits are associated with salt-sourced hy-persaline ore fluids.
They tie to dissolving halokinetic salt supplying and focusing metallif-erous Cl-rich waters. Precipitation sites are typically former platform sulfate levels that altered in buri-al, so supplying CaSO4 to sulfate reduction fixation loci (BSR or TSR).
CODE # TOPIC
2350.01 Low T Pb & Zn carriers
2350.02 Evaporitic MVT deposits
2350.03 Evaporitic SedEx deposits
2350.04 Base metals & diagenesis
High-T saline ores Metalliferous fluid indicators and ore deposits due to direct and indi-rect interactions between magma, evaporites, and their hydrothermal and metamorphic daughters, which at regional and local scales are nei-ther well documented, nor well un-derstood.
Mostly, this is because little or no actual salt remains once these high-temperature interactions run their course.
CODE # TOPIC
2375.01 High-T saline systems
2375.02 Meta-evaporite gems
2375.03 Orthomagmatic ores
2375.03 Paramagmatic ores
McArthur HYC
The greater majority of nonpotash bedded salt resources (borates, sodium carbonates, sodium sulfates and lithium brines) accumulated in continen-tal lacustrine or playa settings. They owe their existence to the unusual ionic compositions that come from groundwater leaching under highly arid conditions, in appropriate bedrock terrains.
Borates, for example, form via the lacustrine concentration of spring inflows that have passed through the active volcanogenic terrain. Likewise, the trona beds of Lake Magadi reflect non-acidic groundwater and hydro-thermal/basin brine leaching (low sulfate, high bicarbonate waters).
In contrast, the largest sodium-chloride chemical feedstock plants tend to be at their most efficient in modern marine-margin arid settings in Mexico and Australia.
Non-potashsalines (1-2 days)
Non-potashsalines (1-2 days)
blue halite howlite nodules Atacama lithium pans
Lake Magadi Ulexite-colemanite Zabuye lake, china
Trona mine, Wyoming Kramer Mine, USA Salar de Atacama
Sodic saltsNatural sodium bicarbonate and sodium sulfate salts, as well as sodium chloride, supply signifi-cant volumes of feedstock to the world’s industrial chemicals in-dustries.
The various salts precipitate with textures and mineral suites indic-ative of their formative hydrology and tectonic settings. Utilizing this knowledge enables the con-struction of predictive models.
CODE TOPIC
2425.01 Soda-ash geology
2425.02 Salt-cake geology
2425.03 Sodium chloride plants
2425.04 Climate & brine state
BoratesMajor commercial borate deposits occur in a limited number of Neo-gene to Holocene non-marine evap-oritic settings, related to volcanic rocks and pyroclastic deposits in closed-basin alkaline lakes fed by hydrothermal waters.
They are open-pit mined at the Kramer mine in Boron California, in the Kirka ore district of Turkey, and Tincalayu in northern Argentina.
CODE # TOPIC
2450.01 Boron chemistry
2450.02 Sites of enrichment
2450.03 Tectonic association
2450.04 Predictive models
Lithium brinesIn the last two decades, Chile has emerged as the world’s largest lithium-carbonate producer from a lake brine, largely through the exploitation of Salar de Atacama, Chile, followed by China with op-erations focused in the Qaidam Basin and small-scale operations at Lake Zabuye.
Quaternary lithium brines accumu-lations are latitudinally restricted to cool arid belts within endorheic continental brine sumps.
CODE # TOPIC
2475.01 Brine chemistry
2475.02 Porosity limitations
2475.03 Predictive models
Evaporite salts and their mineralogical variations tend to construct complex zones of subsurface chemical reactivity, which evolve from the time of the first precipitate until they are exploited or extracted.
This section list a number of salty topics that may be of interest to some explorationists, developers, and engineers working in particular types of deposits with problems related to saline systems. The various topics can be expanded to meet the clients interests, or added and included within a more conventional three-day course designed for either the oil or minerals industries
Related topics (half day each)
halite Wink Sink 2, Texas
Well group Tourmaline, Namibia
Gallencourt induced sink
Solution miningSalt solution mining is the mining of various salts, via dissolution, to create a purpose-built extrac-tion or storage cavity. It requires pumping the brine liquor to the surface. There, the extracted brine can be concentrated or pro-cessed.
For example, solution mining for potash exploits folded and dis-turbed beds or deep-lying salt strata, situations not easily mined using conventional techniques.
CODE # TOPIC
2525.01 Mining techniques
2525.02 Residues and blinding
2525.03 Operations & geology
2525.04 Monitoring
Meta-evaporitesEvaporite salts can survive well into the metamorphic realm, but are altered, recrystallised or trans-formed into new minerals and brine solutions.
And so, beyond the early green-schist phase, little of the original sedimentary mineral phase remains (except anhydrite), but scapolites. tourmalines, albitites, etc., do, along with various indicator tex-tures.
CODE # TOPIC
2550.01 Metamorphism
2550.02 Indicator minerals
2550.03 Gems from brine
2550.04 Case histories
Salty ProblemsAll evaporites tend to dissolve and, when salt beds or a haloki-netic masses are uplifted and so approach the surface, the rate of this dissolutions tends to increase considerably.
Hence, salt in regions where it is mined, or used to create cavities for liquid or waste storage, can occasionally be susceptible to un-expected cavity enlargement, col-lapse and ground subsidence.
CODE # TOPIC
2575.01 Collapsing brinefields
2575.02 Leaky oilfield wells
2575.03 Leaky caverns
2575.04 Safety issues
2575.01 Solving the problem
Solikamsk collapse, 2014
lapis lazuli
At SaltWorks, we are committed to offering up-to-date and comprehen-sive training in all matters evaporitic.
We also offer a full range of related consultancy services and a compre-hensive GIS database that encompasses all of the examples provided in any of our training modules. All data plots and polygons are cross-refer-enced to their source data.
Refer to our web page to see the complete range of services that we offer.
Our promise
www.saltworkconsultants.com
http://www.saltworkconsultants.com
Principal instructorDr. John Warren is the leading expert and technical coordinator for Saltworks. His career spans more than 30 years in salty systems.
Interests include; Wireline Analysis, Car-bonate and Evaporite Systems, Oil and Gas, Economic Geology and Potash explo-ration and development.
He has written four books on economic aspects of evaporites, has contributed re-lated chapters in a number of books and has published more than 60 scientific ar-ticles in applied aspects of saline geology.
Course materials Each participant in the course receives a complete set of digital course notes. This material is a series of hi-resolution pdf files that give the participant a copy of every slide presented during their train-ing course.
In addition, each participant receives a digital copy of Dr. Warren’s 2016 book “Evaporites: A compendium” published by Springer (ISBN978-3-319-13512-0). This all-color edition runs to more than 1800 pages and has been cited as the most complete summary of evaporites current-ly available.
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Telephone: +61 8 121 5710 (Australia) +66 8 9498 1512 (roaming/SMS)
Web page: www.saltworkconsultants.com
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