Continuous subaqueous deposition of the Permian Castile evaporites, Delaware Basin, Texas and New Mexico

Structures that are common in the Castile Formation (Ochoan) of the Delaware Basin, Texas and New Mexico (Fig. 1) include fine planar laminations, breccias, microfolded laminae, and nodular anhydrite. These structures, particularly the laminae, have been used to demonstrate the subaqueous depositional history of the Castile (Anderson and Kirkland, 1966; Anderson et al., 1972; Dean et al., 1975; Dean and Anderson, 1978). Kirkland and Anderson (1970) showed that the microfolds in the Castile are related to larger folds generated by tectonic compression. Breccia beds and chimneys and their relations to vertical and lateral salt dissolution in the Delaware Basin were discussed by Anderson et al. (1972), Anderson (1978), Anderson et al. (1978), and Anderson and Kirkland (1980). In this workshop we will describe and illustrate these structures and summarize how they have been used to understand the depositional and postdepositional history of a major evaporite deposit for which there is no modern analog.