As alabaster, it is readily sculpted and carved. Glass Mountain in Capitol Reef National Park consists of massive translucent slabs of crystalline gypsum, called selenite. The arches of Arches National Park were molded by an underlying gypsum salt dome that bowed the sandstone layers above. Gypsum and halite are light compared to other rock layers and so are squeezed upward to form massive salt domes. Pressed under the weight of overlying rock strata, they become plastic and mobile. Both gypsum and rock salt, or halite, are geologically peculiar. Gypsum is a pale, soft mineral composed of hydrous calcium sulfate. Long ago, under a shrinking Lake Bonneville, such evaporates produced the Bonneville Salt Flats. More commonly, evaporative precipitates accumulate beneath shallow lagoons like those of the Great Salt Lake. In deep stagnant waters, these minerals are concentrated by settling. Along with rock salt, gypsum forms as a precipitate from salty brines. The Sheetrock walls of your home are made from the marine mineral gypsum. Many of us slumber nightly amid the mineral sediments of ancient oceans. Gypsum sand from White Sands National Monument, New Mexicoĭepartment of Geology, The College of Wooster Gypsum deposits seen off the tour route in Lehman Caves, Great Basin National Park (Along the Western Utah/Nevada border) Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 2:58 | Recorded on March 7, 2013Ĭourtesy and Copyright David Roubik, Photographer
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