During the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC, 5.97–5.33 Ma), thick evaporites were deposited in Mediterranean Sea associated with major margin erosion. This has been interpreted by most authors as resulting from water level drop evaporation but its timing, amplitude and variations between subbasins are poorly constrained due to uncertainty post-Messinian vertical motions lack of a clear time-corre...

In this paper, the needle penetrometer test was utilized to explore the reliability of the Needle Penetration Index (NPI) for estimating the Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) of sedimentary rocks including gypsum, marl, siltstone and sandstone collected from the Qom Formation. Following the UCS and NP test, regression analyses were carried out to control the predictive performances of NPI. ...

Wave propagation is used as an advanced tool of determining elastic properties of rocks. In spite of being cheap and non destructive tests of rock mechanics, due to its modernity method is not yet replacing the traditional dear and destructive tests. In order to pave ways of replacing this test and making best use of it all effective factors of such method are to be assessed. One fundamental fa...

Gamma ray logs are most useful in identifying subsurface lithology and interpreting depositional environments. This study highlights the use of outcrop gamma-ray along with observations total organic carbon (TOC) analysis to provide stratigraphic framework organic-rich rocks Huai Hin Lat Formation central Thailand. The reveals five sedimentary facies including (1) structureless sandstone, (2) s...

Introduction: Until now micrometeorites have been extracted from limited periods of geological time (up to ~185-Myr-old) providing only a fragmented record of MM flux changes over geological time [1]. Because of preservation problems, we did not think MMs could be recovered from salt deposits (such as halite). Here we report that not only can MMs be found in, and successfully extracted from, ha...

Focused groundwater discharge in closed basins provides opportunities to investigate mechanisms for closing hydrologic and solute budgets in arid regions. The Salar de Atacama (SdA), adjacent to the Central Andean Plateau in the hyperarid Atacama Desert, provides an extreme example of halite (>1800 km) and lithium brine (~5000 ppm) accumulation spanning late Miocene to present. Minimum long-ter...