Geology and Geohydrology of the Palo Duro Basin, Texas Panhandle...(1979)

GC8007. Geology and Geohydrology of the Palo Duro Basin, Texas Panhandle: A Report on the Progress of Nuclear Waste Isolation Feasibility Studies (1979), by T. C. Gustavson, M. W. Presley, C. R. Handford, R. J. Finley, S. P. Dutton, R. W. Baumgardner, Jr., K. A. McGillis, and W. W. Simpkins. 99 p., 54 figs., 7 tables, 1 well log, 1980. ISSN: 0082-3309. Print.


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ABSTRACT
Since early 1977, the Bureau of Economic Geology has been evaluating several salt-bearing basins within the State of Texas as part of the national nuclear repository program. The Bureau, a research unit of The University of Texas at Austin and the State of Texas, is carrying out a long-term program to gather and interpret all geologic and hydrologic information necessary for description, delineation, and evaluation of salt-bearing strata in the Palo Duro and Dalhart Basins of the Texas Panhandle. The program in FY 79 has been subdivided into four broad research tasks, which are addressed by a basin analysis group, a surface studies group, a geohydrology group, and a host-rock analysis group (fig. 1). The basin analysis group has de lineated the structural and stratigraphic framework of the basins, initiated natural resource assessment, and integrated data from 8,000 ft (2,400 m) of core material into salt-stratigraphy models. Salt depth and thickness have been delineated for seven salt bearing stratigraphic units. Concurrently, the surface studies group has collected ground and remotely sensed data to describe surficial processes, including salt solution, slope retreat erosion mechanisms, geomorphic evolution, and fracture system development. The basin geohydrology group has begun evaluating both shallow and deep fluid circulation within the basins. The newly formed host-rock analysis group has initiated study of cores from two drilling sites for analysis of salt and the various lithologies overlying and interbedded with salt units. This paper, a summary report of progress in FY 79, presents principal conclusions and reviews methods used and types of data and maps generated.



Keywords: Dalhart Basin, Palo Duro Basin, Texas Panhandle, Texas, waste isolation

CONTENTS
Purpose and scope

Palo Duro and Dalhart Basin studies--A summary of second-year research activities

Lithofacies and depositional environments of evaporite-bearing strata based on Randall and Swisher County cores

Mapping of facies by well log interpretation

Upper Permian salt-bearing stratigraphic units

Salt depositional systems--an example from the Tubb Formation

Salt depth and thickness studies

Petroleum source rock quality and thermal maturity

Preliminary aspects of deep-basin hydrology

Climatic analysis

Slope erosion mechanisms

Suspended sediment concentration and stream discharge relationships for the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River: an approach to determine erosion rates

Shallow ground-water hydrology--a preliminary review

Rates of salt dissolution

Preliminary rates of slope retreat and salt dissolution along the eastern Caprock Escarpment of the Southern High Plains and in the Canadian River Valley

Faulting and salt dissolution

Collapse chimneys, collapse surfaces, and breccia zones

Landsat analysis of surface linear elements

References


Citation
Gustavson, T. C., Presley, M. W.,  Handford, C. R.,  Finley, R. J.,  Dutton, S. P., Baumgardner, R. W., Jr., and others, 1980, Geology and Geohydrology of the Palo Duro Basin, Texas Panhandle: A Report on the Progress of Nuclear Waste Isolation Feasibility Studies (1979): The University of Texas at Austin, Bureau of Economic Geology, Geological Circular 80-7, 99 p.