Thick salt deposits are present in the Middle Pennsylvanian Paradox Member of the Hermosa Formation in the Paradox Basin of southeast Utah and southwest Colorado. Data suggest that the original thickness of these deposits was from 5000-6000 feet. Locally, however, these deposits have been subjected to intense deformation and flow, resulting in thicknesses as great as 14,000 feet. Each salt bed is part of a series of partial and complete evaporite cycles which show a lateral and vertical change in facies. Varve counts in the salt beds give an indication of deposition rates of time-equivalent carbonate beds. Black sapropelic shales are interbedded with the salt beds. It appears that the euxinic environment in which the shales were deposited persisted during the deposition of salt. An understanding of the stratigraphy of the salt deposits has made possible a more complete depiction of early tectonic events involving the salt basin. These studies indicate that many of the salt anticlines in the basin were formed along trends of originally thick salt beds, and that upward growth of these anticlines possibly began during the late stages of salt deposition.
