THE SALT MOUNTAINS

 

THE SALT MOUNTAINS




This spectacular dome is one of the finest examples of his genre. The salt dome of Jashak is one of the largest and most beautiful of typical salt domes. 

Millions of years ago, the Persian Gulf was a much larger body of water than it is today and flooded large sections of the Arabian Peninsula to the south and Iran to the west. When the water evaporated and the sea banks retreated, he left behind huge amounts of salt. The salt layer was covered with sediments washed out of the mountains by rainwater and, over time, the sediment layer thickened and compacted.

In such circumstances, salt begins to behave like a fluid leading to an interesting behavior known as salt tectonics. The weight of thousands of feet of sediment and rocks pushing down on the salt layer causes the salt to rise through the overhanging rocks. When a weak point is found in the overlying sediment layer, the salt will pass through it to form domes known as diapirs. 

You can see all these amazing salt formations in the southern, southwest, and central regions of Iran. The best examples are in the Zagros Mountains which run parallel to the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf. The Zagros Mountains formed when the Arab Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate, leaving many ridges and faults for the formation of saline diapirs.







CAM


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