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The Marble exploration hole 3 is in the northern part of the Tippipah Spring NE 7-1/2 minute quadrangle at the north end of Yucca Valley (fig.1). The collar elevation of the hole is about 5,316 feet and has the approximate Nevada State coordinates of N. 903,093 and E. 674,870. The hole was drilled to determine the physical and chemical properties of the marble within a radius of 200 feet of a point 950 feet below the surface. The exploration hole is 978 feet deep and was drilled from June 12 to July 8, 1959, by Minerals Engineering Co. of Grand Junction, Colorado, using conventional NX coring equiipment and a Portadrill 2,500 drill rig. Water-base bentonitic mud was used as the drilling fluid in the upper part of the hole. Clear water was used after circulation became unrestorable below 200 feet. The hole was cased from surface to 20 feet. The drilling rate during coring ranged from 2.0 to 19.3 minutes per foot and averaged 4.6 minutes per foot (table 1). The core recovered was excellent in quality and quantity. The average core recovery is 92.7 percent (table 2).
Between Project Gnome site and the International Minerals and Chemical Corporation's plant site, in central eastern Eddy County, N. Mex., unconsolidated deposits of Quaternary age and redbeds of Triassic age attain a thickness of about 700 feet, and rest unconformably on evaporites of late Permian age. The upper Permian evaporites are 3,000 to 3,800 feet thick, and they are divided, in descending order, into the Rustler, Salado, and Castile formations. The Rustler is largely gypsum rock, the Salado is dominantly halite rock, and the Castile contains both anhydrite rock and halite rock. The salt and anhydrite beds of the Salado and Castile are intruded by narrow dikes of alkalic rock along which the evaporites are little altered. The sedimentary rocks have a generally southeastward regional dip, but locally are warped in gentle folds of low amplitude and fairly small lateral dimensions.
The Marble exploration hole 4 was drilled to determine the chemical and physical properties of marble from the surface to depth of about 1,200 feet. The drill hole is in the north-central part of the Tippipah Spring quadrangle, approximately 40 miles north of Mercury, Nev. The collar of the hole is at an elevation of 5,490.28 feet and has the Nevada State grid coordinates of N. 904,480.13 and E. 637,758.38. The hole is accessible by a graded dirt road easily traversed by heavy construction equipment, that connects to the highway between Mercury and Groom Lake. The hole was core drilled by Minerals Engineering Company, Grand Junction, Colo., with a 2,000-foot capacity Portadrill drilling rig and conventional NX coring equipment. Drilling was started July 13, and completed August 30, 1959. The drilling fluid was water for most of the hole. At some places in the hole, where loss of drilling fluid was high, the water was thickened with bentonitic mud. At 1,103 feet, presumed caving of the hole caused the drill stem to stick so that it could not be withdrawn; subsequently about 920 feet of the drill stem was recovered. The hole was then reamed to 800 feet and cemented from 785 to 855 feet. A whipstock was emplaced at depth of 805 feet so that the hole, which was vertical to this depth, would be deflected 4° from the vertical. Core was recovered for this part of the hole from 1,088 to 1,187 feet, the total depth. Seven feet of 8-inch outside diameter casing was set from the collar. This report summarizes the information obtained during preparation of the lithologic log of the core and presents results of chemical analyses of marble samples collected from surface near the drill hole. The report was prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey on behalf of the Albuquerque Operations Office, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The writers acknowledge the assistance of Mr. John Foster, drilling foreman for Minerals Engineering Company and Mr. Walter A. Johnson, field engineer for Holmes and Narver, Inc., the engineering-contracting firm.
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This summary is the result of a search of the available literature. Emphasis is placed on the mechanical and calorimetric properties of salt; the measurements of elastic, thermal, magnetic, and mass properties of salt are merely tabulated. Under hydrostatic pressure < 1,000 kg/cm2 at room temperature, salt deforms plastically to strains > 100 percent at a nearly constant stress difference of about 300 kg/cm2. Similarily, under temperatures > 400?C at one atmosphere, salt deforms plastically to strains > 100 percent under stress differences of about 100 kg/cm2. Entha1pies were calculated for various temperatures to 2,000? C from the low temperature and high temperature heat capacities and the heats of solution of the following minerals: salt (or halite), NaCl; anhydrite, CaS04; quartz, Si02; and calcite, CaC03. Three combinations of these minerals were assumed to represent three possible natural salt beds, and the heats required to raise the temperature of each to 1,500?C and to 2,000?C were calculated. For a half and half mixture of salt and anhydrite, 1,300 cal/gm were required to raise the temperature to 2,000?C. For an evaporite containing 60 percent salt and about equal amounts of anhydrite, calcite, and quartz, 1,100 cal/gm are required to raise the temperature to 2,OOO?C. Most of the measurements of the elastic moduli were made on single crystals of salt, anhydrite, and gypsum. For the most part, the measurements of density, magnetic susceptibility, and other properties were made on natural salt samples.
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Prepared in cooperation with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
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