Experimentally produced halite compared with Triassic layered halite‐rock from Cheshire, England

ABSTRACT The experimental evaporation of brine in shallow vessels shows that layered halite can form by the overgrowth of crystals in mats that have foundered from their initial position of growth at the brine‐air interface; by the upward and lateral growth of crystals that have nucleated on the floor; and by the overgrowth on detrital halite. Each of these processes, and its resultant crystal fabric, is described in relation to the environmental factors which influence it. The fabrics of primary halite crystals in layered halite‐rock and associated deposits from the Lower Keuper Saliferous Beds of the Cheshire Basin are described and compared with those of the experimentally produced halite. Some of the ancient halite‐rock may be matched with floor‐nucleated crystals, and some with detrital halite; none can be shown to have grown from foundered mats. The halite‐rock is regarded as having formed in shallow brine bodies, perhaps only a few centimetres deep, but of unknown extent, whilst the presence of planar solution or deflation surfaces at the top of the layered units, and disruptions in bedding similar to buckled salt‐crust structures, point to periodic and perhaps prolonged emergence.