MINERALOGY AND FLUID CHEMISTRY OF SURFICIAL SEDIMENTS IN THE NEWFOUNDLAND BASIN, TOOELE AND BOX ELDER COUNTIES, UTAH
Blair F. Jones, William W. White III, Kathryn M. Conko, Daniel M. Webster, and James F. Kohler

This CD contains a 53-page report (plus 43-page appendices) that details a three-year field study of Newfoundland Basin’s shallow-brine aquifer and associated playa and lacustrine sediments. Chemical and mineralogical characterization was performed on brine and selected core samples collected from the shallow-brine aquifer and sediments intercepted by 24 boreholes and 8 sets of nested monitoring wells. Aquifer tests were also conducted on specific boreholes and monitoring wells. Ground-water-brine transport in sediments of the shallow-brine aquifer occurred mainly in the permeable sedimentary facies, and possibly in vertical fissures observed in mudflat-clay facies. TEQUIL predicted mineral-sequence plots, from simulated step-wise evaporation of pore-fluid brines from peripheral and central-basin core samples, demonstrated that near-surface pore-fluid brines (<5-foot/1.5-meter depth) were a mixture of pre-West Desert Pumping Project ground water and Great Salt Lake brine. Conversely, pore fluids from core depths ranging from 5 to nearly 7 feet (1.5 to 2.1 meters) below ground level had predicted mineral sequence plots similar to the pre-pumping ground-water brine.