Investigations of Soluble Salt Loads, Controlling Mineralogy, and Factors Affecting the Rates and Amounts of Leached Salts

摘要

The quantity of soluble salts available for leaching beneath saline seep areas was assessed. The geochemical processes operating in saline ground-water systems were examined in a simulated weathering process by leaching at 55C and pH > or = to 5.0 for 21 hours. Carbonate content and mineralogy of drill-hole samples was determined before leaching. The experimental leachates with calcium as the dominant cation were not similar to saline-seep waters discharges in the field dominated by Na(+1)-Mg(+2)-SO4(-2) or Na(+1)-SO4(-2) but were similar to waters from low-pH saline seeps in thin soils developed directly on Colorado Shale (Cretaceous), suggesting that the types of hydrolysis reactions observed in the laboratory occur in saline-seep systems in the unsaturated zone.