Slide 1

July 19, 2005David Wieczorek Volume Calculations I have calculated the volumes of Keechi, Vacherie, Richton, and Cypress Creek Domes in the upper 3km to the surface. Keechi: 26.95km 3, Vacherie: 45.07km 3, Richton: 40.6km 3, Cypress Creek: 19.0km 3 Keechi and Vacherie have contour lines that are nearly elliptical. I assumed that these lines were perfect ellipses in calculating their volumes. The contour lines of Richton and Cypress Creek are oddly shaped. To find the area of each contour I traced them onto graph paper and counted the number of full and partial squares. I assumed the area of every partial square to be one half the area of a full square. Full square Partial square Slide 2 July 19, 2005David Wieczorek Travel Plans August 17-20 th Amy Connolly and I will be traveling to Louisiana with the following agenda: Investigate the area around Vacherie Dome. Check for any current uses of the dome. Meet with Brian E. Lock, a salt dome expert at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Talk with land owners. Make new connections. Anything else? Slide 3 July 19, 2005David Wieczorek Contour Map of Vacherie Dome Pink = Webster Parish Blue = Bienville Parish Slide 4 July 19, 2005David Wieczorek Contact with Webster Parish Louisiana is broken up into parishes instead of counties. Land ownership is documented by two different offices in each parish. Clerk of Court Tax Assessors Office The Tax Assessors Office handles large plots of land. I contacted the Webster Parish Tax Assessors office and requested the ownership information for T17N-R9W Sections 12,13 and T17N-R8W Sections7,8,9,14,15,16,17,18. These are the parcels of land over the dome in Webster Parish. We ordered this information and the fee was $40.00. I was told on the phone that there were 452 landowners in the sections I requested. Although this may seem like a lot of people, it is perhaps a good sign that the dome is not being heavily exploited by industry. Slide 5 July 19, 2005David Wieczorek Recent Books/Documents added Salt Mines of South Louisiana, by Brian E. Lock and Don H. Kupfer, Louisiana Geological Survey, 2003. This book contains information on some of the following properties of salt domes. Ground Penetrating Radar Information Texture Structural Features (i.e. layering, chemically graded beds, folding, attitude, Color and Composition minor fold, and slabbing). Anomalous Salt Features (i.e. hardness, inclusions, shear zones).